THE GLOBAL TALENT INDEX: SRI LANKA’S LOW RANKING SHOULD BE AN EYE OPENER

MY VIEW 30 – ECONOMICS MATTERS
By W.A. Wijewardena
THE GLOBAL TALENT INDEX: SRI LANKA’S LOW RANKING SHOULD BE AN EYE OPENER
The Need for Developing Talents and Skills
It was the Sinhala Scholar, Poet and Writer of renown, Munidasa Kumaratunga, who once said that a nation that does not invent and produce new things cannot prosper in this world. To invent and produce new things, a nation should develop its talents and skills, individually as well as collectively. Modern economists call this developing knowledge capital and attribute the current global economic prosperity to its rapid advancement. Having recognised its importance in the country’s march toward making Sri Lanka the Wonder of Asia, Mahinda Chintahana, the policy package of the government, has laid down plans to convert Sri Lanka to a ‘knowledge hub’, an aspiration to become a producer of world class knowledge, talents and skills so that Sri Lanka could disseminate the same to the rest of the world. So the proposed knowledge hub while helping Sri Lanka to attain prosperity within the domestic economy is expected to make it a foreign exchange earner by exporting knowledge, talents and skills.
The goal of becoming a knowledge hub requires Sri Lanka to develop its talent pool far ahead of the rest of the world. Hence, an international comparison to find out where Sri Lanka presently stands and how much effort it has to make to win and outperform others is timely and opportune.
The Global Talent Survey
In this regard, the results of the Global Talent Survey for 2011 and the outlook for 2015 released last week are a pointer. This survey covering 60 countries has been conducted by the London based The Economist Intelligence Unit and published by the international consultancy firm, Heidrick and Struggles. A country is assessed by seven broad aspects relating to talent development and its

capacity for attracting and retaining talents. The final scores earned by countries have been produced in the form of a global talent index that ranks countries from the best to the worst (available at www.globaltalentindex.com ). Most of the data for ranking have been obtained from the Economist Intelligence Unit data bases, while country executives and experts have been surveyed to learn of their own perceptions about talent development challenges in their respective countries. The maximum scoreable points for a country are 100.
The previous survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit for 2007 covered only 30 countries and did not include Sri Lanka. Hence, the current survey does not throw light on Sri Lanka’s past performance in talent development.
Sri Lankans are poorly talented
In the survey for 2011, Sri Lanka which has scored 26.3 points has been ranked at the 59th position out of 60 countries, just one notch above Nigeria. The survey also prepares a global talent index prospectively for 2015 taking into account the policies being adopted by the 60 countries included in the survey. In terms of this, Sri Lanka would improve itself just by two notches in 2015 to occupy the 57th position by scoring 29.2 points and driving Algeria, Nigeria and Azerbaijan to the last three slots.
According to the Survey, USA which has scored 74.2 points has been ranked number one in the global talents in 2011. Even in 2015, it is to maintain its position unrivalled as the global leader in talents. USA’s supremacy as the leader of global talents has been due to the high quality of university education (of the top 500 universities in the world, one in three is a US university), flexibility and the innovativeness of its workers, high research and development outlays and ability to attract and retain talents to that country. Its closest rival, Denmark, is a way below scoring 64.7 points in 2011 and marginally improving to 65.4 points in 2015. From the Asian region, Singapore which has scored 60.2 points has been ranked at the 5th place in 2011 well above its one time colonial master, the UK, which has been ranked at 12; Singapore’s position has been downgraded to the 6th position in 2015 though it is projected to improve its score by 1.7 points over its score in 2011, simply because the other countries have improved their talents much faster. China and India, the two countries which Asians believe will take over the world in the next few decades are ranked at 33 and 35, respectively, in the global talents in 2011. While China has managed to upgrade itself to the 31st position in 2015, India has remained at 35, co – sharing that position with a new comer, Mexico. Russia, another country of promise by many, is ranked at the 34th position in both 2011 and 2015.
Hence, Sri Lanka has a long way to go to convert itself to a global knowledge hub of importance. The need of the day is not rhetoric but concrete and consistent action to reach that goal.
Global Perceptions should not be ignored
The publisher of the index, Heidrick and Struggles, has been in business as an international consultancy firm in human resource and talent management for over 60 years. It has a presence in all the five continents, namely, North America, South America, Europe, Asia and the Oceania. Its collaborator and compiler of the index, The Economist Intelligence Unit, is a part of the renowned economic weekly, The Economist of the UK. In view of this Western orientation of the two compilers, one may just dismiss its results as yet another Western conspiracy to tarnish the good image of Sri Lanka, while attempting to boost their own. But, if Sri Lanka aspires to develop itself as a global knowledge hub of worth, it has to deal with the perceptions of the global community which has looked at Sri Lanka’s talent landscape in a different way. In this respect, the humble and modest approach made by China, the country which Sri Lanka treats in awe and with respect, may be a lesson to those who may wish to jump on the bandwagon of conspiracy theories.
The Chinese President Hu Jintao himself requested the academics and students of Tsinghua University at its centenary celebrations in April, 2011 to be research oriented and independent in thinking. Noting that China lags behind the rest of the world in talent development, Hu further said that, as reported by The South China Morning Post, building ‘several world class universities and many more with higher standards in teaching and research is a major step for a country to cultivate its talents’. This comment by the Chinese President was made despite the high global ranking which Tsinghua had got among the world’s top universities: in fact it has been ranked the top 58th university in the world by the UK based newspaper, The Times. The example set by China’s leadership to eat

the humble pie amidst the adverse international criticism is a sure way for a nation to progress forward.
Hence, the publication of the Global Talent Index ranking Sri Lanka at the 59th place out of 60 countries is a good opportunity for Sri Lanka to reflect inward and make a judgment for itself how and why the country has gone wrong and what measures are needed today to rectify its mistakes.
The Coverage of the Index
Seven important criteria have been used by the compilers of the index to assess the status of the talent development in each country. They are,
1. The demographic conditions
2. The quality of compulsory education
3. The quality of university education
4. The quality of labour force
5. The degree to which the work environment in the country nurtures talent
6. The mobility and the relative openness of the labour market and
7. The country’s proclivity to attract talents
In all the seven criteria, Sri Lanka has been ranked very low, either at the bottom or close to the bottom of the list.
Though all the seven criteria need careful investigation, I will touch upon the two most important ones, namely, the pathetic state of the compulsory general education and the university education.
The Low Quality of General Education
In the case of the compulsory education, Sri Lanka has earned a moderate score of 54.1 well above India which has scored only 32.0 points. Sri Lanka’s moderate score has been due to its better performance with respect to the duration of compulsory education, enrolment ratios and adult literacy rates. But it has scored low with respect to two other criteria in the category, namely, the low education expenditure in the total gross domestic product (less than 2 percent in recent years and is on the decline), the low amount spent per student as a percent of per capita income (about 5 percent). The poor resource allocation on compulsory education, due to growing budgetary constraints, has adversely affected the ability of the country to maintain its quality. This is an area where Sri Lanka has to pay urgent attention since it is the quality of the compulsory education that supplies quality inputs for the development of the future talent pool of a country.
University Education is pathetic
The quality of Sri Lanka’s university education, as revealed by the global talent survey, has been pathetic. Its ability to provide university places for all those aspirants of higher education has been very low: the average number enrolled in universities has been about one in every five students who qualify to enter a university. The current university system which has a physical constraint by way of infrastructure, modern class room facilities and university teachers has been faced with the problem of meeting the growing demand for university education in the country in the future. Further, Sri Lanka does not have a single university that is ranked within the top 500 universities in the world. Its total expenditure on higher education amounting to Rs 19 billion in 2010 has been about 0.3 percent of the gross domestic product of Rs 5602 billion in that year.
On all these three counts, Sri Lanka has scored a zero point in the index. This has to be compared with 82.9 scored by USA, 38.2 by Singapore, 30.0 by Malaysia, 24.4 by China and 15.2 by India.
The conversion of Sri Lanka to a knowledge hub crucially depends on developing a world class university system in the country. During the British period and in the first decade after independence, Sri Lanka’s only university at that time, namely, the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya was ranked on par with the University of London on which the University of Ceylon had been modelled. However, after the second decade of independence, especially after the university

system went for the Swabhasha education system, Sri Lanka lost this unique position. The poor funding, poor remuneration and poor research facilities all contributed to this pathetic development in the country’s higher education system. To add further woes to the already ailing universities, new universities were set up as a matter of political expediency without proper planning or funding. Some of these universities were just namesakes and became recognised universities simply on the strength of the government’s seal that had been given to them and not on the quality of teaching or research. Hence, if Sri Lanka is to develop as a knowledge hub today, it is necessary that the country’s university system should regain the old glory which the University of Ceylon had during the British time.
Essential Attributes of a world class university
What makes a world class university? This question was posed to Andrew Hamilton, currently Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford and formerly the Provost of Yale by the China’s Xinhua News Agency in April, on the sideline of the Tsinghua University’s centenary celebrations. ‘The spirit of a university centres on two things...’ was the answer of the world renowned academic. ‘...and those are the commitment to excellence and free debate’. He further elaborated his second point by adding that at Oxford, students and tutors exchange views on different subjects in a free robust and rigorous debate. According to him, such a free environment helps students to develop intellectual self confidence which is essential for developing a person’s innovative capacity and creativity.
There are two main characteristics attributed to world class universities. One is academic freedom and the other is independent thinking.
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the freedom enjoyed by university academia to teach, write or express what they believe to be true without having to doctor their views to conform to official or any other social line of thinking. If an opinion expressed by one academic is subject to dispute as it should always be, there are procedures for resolving such disputes by using again an accepted ethical and moral disputation resolution code. The creation of such an environment in a university will help everyone, that is, academics, students and the general public, to advance their intellectual capacity. The countries which have tried to deliberately engineer academic views to fall in line with dogmas or ideals of their political leaders have miserably failed to create creative societies endowed with talents.
Independent thinking
Independent thinking, like the academic freedom, helps academics and students to develop their intellectual capacities free from biases or uncritical conformity to accepted views. It breeds a class of free thinkers and not blind followers. Independent thinking as related to undergraduates has been succinctly presented by Rev Weliwitiye Soratha, founding Vice Chancellor of the then Vidyodaya University as follows: ‘The university students should be probing, critical, rebellious, ethical and honest’. A similar view has been expressed by the 12th century Egyptian physician and philosopher Moses Maimonides when he said, ‘men like the opinions to which they have accustomed from youth; this prevents them from finding the truth, for they cling to the opinions of habit’. A world class university promotes and appreciates such independent thinking in both academics and students. This is what the Chinese President Hu Jintao meant when he requested the students of Tsinghua University to maintain their individuality by thinking independently.
Restore the lost university autonomy
Many including previous university vice chancellors and current and retired academics have charged that Sri Lanka’s university system has lost both these core values. There are charges that universities, instead of developing a true intellectual environment, have become regimental organisations by trying to control the free thinking of both academics and students. In the case of academics, it has been alleged that those who toe the political leaders’ line are rewarded while those who do not are penalised. Of late, university academics and concerned citizens have charged that universities have lost even the autonomy provided to them by statutes to decide on curricula and course materials. This development in fact does not augur well for developing a world class university system in the country or converting Sri Lanka to a knowledge hub of worth.

The global talent survey is therefore an eye opener for Sri Lanka to take early action to reform its education system and the labour market to promote talents and skills in its citizens both individually and collectively.
(W.A. Wijewardena can be reached at waw1949@gmail.com )