- Education Minister Susil Premajayantha is confident that in another 10-15 years Sri Lanka will be able to completely overcome the current economic crisis, and cites the current status of the education sector as an indication of country’s overall improvement
As Sri Lanka manoeuvres through a critical Presidential Election, mounted on economic and political uncertainty, senior politician, Leader of the House of Parliament, Education Minister Dr. Susil Premajayantha stressed, with a positive note that Sri Lanka will be debt-free in another 10-15 years. He added that in order to succeed in economic stability, Sri Lanka has to improve exports, the tourism industry, foreign remittances and investments. “Through this we can improve the GDP – which we want to improve to 90-95% to meet the demand for loan repayments scheduled from 2028,” he pointed out, during an interview with The Daily Morning.
Following are the excerpts from the interview:
Economic recovery has been a top priority question at present. How do you see the current economic recovery?
When we took over the country in June 2022, the country was in a mess. There was a shortage of petroleum fuel, LPG, medicine, a 14-hour power cut, and multiple issues at that time.
The key economic indicators at that time were showing alarming figures. One key indicator, inflation, was at 76%. But within 2 years we were able to bring it down to less than 3%. It dropped further during last month in Colombo to 0.5%. In 2022 the exchange rate rose to USD rate at Rs. 370. As of now its being reduced to Rs. 303. The price of a litre of petrol rose up to Rs. 444 but today it is less than Rs. 340. At present, the share market is strengthened and stabilised. Another indicator would be bank loan interest rates – which rose up to 28% during the height of the economic crisis and as of now, it has decreased to a single digit rate.
It is true that we impose certain taxes. But without these taxes the Government can not maintain the services it provides through the government institutes. We didn't have any other option to pay the salaries of the government-sector employees who are working in these institutes and maintain ministries and departments specially attached to sectors such as health and education. These institutes are not profit-making. Taxing was the option to pay the salaries and maintain the recurrent expenditure of the State sector.
Fortunately our friendly countries helped us, at this juncture. For example India gave us a term loan, with that we managed to get medicines, papers to print text books, etc. And China provided us with our requirements at 70% free of charge – as a donation. This we received in 2023, and it was 80% in 2024, and 2025 it will be a 100% donation of the entire requirement of school uniform material for 4.3 million students. It is already finalised and expecting the shipment in the latter part of November.
The education sector is now ready for the new year – which is another indication of the stability the country has achieved. As mentioned above, we have the uniform material for schoolchildren, textbooks printed and ready, and ready to provide the midday meal for 1.7 million students and we are planning to provide it to more students in 6, 7, and 8 grades – if possible to all students, depending on the country’s economic development.
Meanwhile, the Government had discussions with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Paris Club, donor Governments such as India and China and with that help we managed to restructure our US Dollar ($) 51 billion foreign debts and nearly $ 49 billion local debts. Still we had to settle transactions with individual countries. But other than that, debt is restructured.
Government applauds the receipt of the IMF loan and other credit facilities. What are the realities when reaching the repayment period?
The other step in economic recovery is repaying loans from 2028. For any government it is a challenging task. Because in addition to the recurrent expenditure, the Government has to find funds to pay back loans and interests. In order to meet this demand we have to improve our exports, the tourism industry, foreign remittances and investments. Through this we can improve the GDP – which we want to improve to 90-95% to meet the demand for loan repayments scheduled from 2028.
Economists have stated that this is the first time the country recovered from a disaster. It is surely a great achievement for the Government.
We have achieved our development targets by imposing taxes, as we did not have any other alternative. Thus, the IMF and other foreign donors continue to support us. This is the 17th instance Sri Lanka has received the IMF agreement. With the ongoing debt restructuring, in another 15 years, Sri Lanka will have no debts. With this we hope to stabilise the country’s economy for another 2-3 decades.
Increasing state revenue is not the only condition the IMF has stipulated. Minimising bribery and corruption are key points too.
Yes, true. We have done that too. That is why the Government enacted 36 new laws in Parliament. This not only covers bribery and corruption. We have the anti-corruption Bill, debt management Bill, the Central Bank Bill, Economic transformation Bill – all these enactments are focused to minimise the corruption in the country. Therefore, now we have to properly implement them.
You are one of the few senior, seasoned politicians serving at present. How do you review the current political situation?
Since 2000 I have been elected to the Parliament – this is the 24th year. Never have I experienced a period like the past two years and three months. In my experience, apart from the years where the civil conflict was on, this would be the first time I’m seeing Sri Lanka declaring bankruptcy.
In 2022, we took over the Government after it was declared bankrupt. At present, see how people enjoy life, even with limited facilities. Surely this does not indicate that all is ok. But, it shows that the quality of life of the people is better than two years ago.
Government is not presenting a vision statement. We had the vision, and now we are at the operational pace – we offer the implementing document.
How would you rate the current political situation? Many claim that it is the most chaotic. Is it so?
Yes. Now see all the major political parties are split and divided. There is a confusion in identifying MPs from political party office bearers. In some parties there are three or four breakaway groups.
The absence of a strong leader for the next five years, will create a very difficult situation to run the country. We must have a leadership with experience, knowledge, and education to handle the State affairs.
We are still amidst recovery – not fully recovered.
With the Covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis, the worst hit would have been the education sector. Although you assure that the sector is recovered, there seems to be residual effects of the impact. What are the steps taken by the Ministry of Education to address the issue?
We have taken all possible steps. First, we have considered providing basic facilities. This included ensuring the availability of uniform material, text books, and a mid-day meal provided to the scheduled grades. At the time we took over the Government, the State Printing Corporation was at loss-making state with Rs. 1.2 billion debts to State banks. By now they have made Rs. 2 billion profit. The debt arrears were paid and in settling mode. By now the institute is recovering. There was a lack of printing paper – now it's being provided. Since the debt situation is settled the institute can request for a bank loan at any time or are able to open Letter of Credits (LCs) to import items required for printing.
In 2023 we had to allocate Rs. 19 billion to print textbooks, but it has reduced by now to Rs. 12 billion. This was possible due the reduced rates of the exchange rates at present. As a result, the cost of importation was reduced.Thus, the production cost was reduced.
The other issue we are attending to, is the shortage of teachers. We are attempting to sort out the matter by absorbing 16,000 development officers to the teacher service. They are serving in schools at the moment. It is more or less sorted, but a few lapses remain with lack of teachers subject-wise. The reason being we are not getting enough graduates from universities to join the teacher service.
For several years, there have been salary anomalies in the teacher service. By now the Government has been successful in addressing all these anomalies. From 1 January 2025 there will be no anomalies.
Parallel to the excitement of the Presidential Election campaigns, the Government announced issuing benefits and settling salary anomalies of teachers. Was the initiative targeting the Government interest in the Presidential Elections?
It was solely a routine action. We have been working on this for a long time. For the last 30 years trade unions have been demanding this. There were continuous discussions on rectifying salary anomalies. Still the trade unions say there are anomalies. We are addressing the issue – it is a long process. It was not because of the elections.
We wanted to address all these issues because the trade union actions taken in these matters interrupt the daily education of children.
As of now we have assured that from 1 January 2025 there will be no salary anomalies.
Higher education sector is now a part of the Education Ministry. In the State’s attempts to expand the higher education sector, a latest addition would be the Medical Faculty of the University of Moratuwa. And recently there were several additions/transformations taking place between the faculty, SAITM premises and Neville Fernando Hospital. What is the nature of this process?
The transformation is happening. Through a Cabinet paper some of the administrative buildings of the SAITM were transferred to the Medical Faculty of the Moratuwa University and part of the Neville Fernando Hospital will be transformed into a Professorial unit of the Faculty. Currently the students are studying their clinical years at the Kalutara General Hospital.
First the Health Ministry has to improve part of the Neville Fernando Hospital to a professorial unit. In this, the Health Ministry is in search of investors for a feasible private-public partnership. There are 500 beds available. It needs to be developed to attract patients. There are some more buildings given by the ADB, Constructions are under way.
We have only acquired the management section buildings of the SAITM. The loans pertaining to these establishments is a responsibility of the Treasury to settle.
The SAITM building needs to be repaired and structured to the need of a Medical Faculty and then only the faculty can settle in.
But legally it is being transferred. All debt settlements will be done by the Treasury.
Is there a planned process with the Education Ministry to expand the higher education sector?
Yes. There is a draft bill done by the Sectoral Oversight Committee in the Parliament for the higher education sector, planning to establish a National Higher Education Commission. Accordingly, under that Commission there will be three arms to regulate State-sector universities as well as the non-State-sector and the skills sector. After these elections, those bills will be presented to the Cabinet and once approved will be sent for the due process.
The Sri Lanka Medical Council has issued (gazetted) minimum standards for medical education in Sri Lanka. How has this been affecting the sector?
We have to meet those requirements. That is the biggest issue. There were several issues raised with the Universities of Sabaragamuwa, Wayamba (Kuliyapitiya) as well which we had to sort out. Those are fairly ok at the moment.
We have to maintain that issue, if not it can affect the quality of the degree.
The Sri Lankan higher education sector is considered with high standards worldwide. This opens the opportunity to broaden the possibilities of enrolling foreign students to our universities. Is this considered in the development plan for the higher education sector?
We already have a 5% opening for foreign students to enrol into Sri Lankan universities and the universities can charge a fee. We can attract students from foreign countries – regionally or internationally. If the sector can maintain the standards they can earn money and become independent, self sustainable institutions. It will take some time.
By now we have over 563 degree programmes in our universities. It is high time for the faculties to take steps to change their curriculum to suit the demands in the country. Once we digitise the public sector we need more professionals to suit the demands and necessities of the new technology and process. The higher education sector has to plan and get ready for that. This would demand certain changes in the degree programmes. Maybe introduce new degree programmes, planned out to the demands that can arise in the future. For example in the IT sector, there are 200,000 vacancies at the entry level – but not enough skilled people are created through graduate programmes. If we are going to digitalise services in the future, we need to ensure that there is enough human resource to conduct the services. The education, skills development sections need to foresee and plan and establish changes to suit the demand.