[COLOMBO] Presidential candidates in Sri Lanka have pledged to prioritise science and know-how, promising modernisation and higher science training in a rustic affected by “mind drain”.
Sri Lanka will maintain its presidential election on 21 September, its first because the nation’s devastating financial disaster in 2022.
The vote will function the nation’s longest poll paper in historical past, with a report 39 candidates vying for the presidency, all promising to deal with Sri Lanka’s financial and social challenges.
Voters maintain excessive expectations for the upcoming election, significantly in areas resembling decreasing the price of dwelling, chopping taxes, preventing corruption and steering the nation towards financial restoration.
Main candidates, together with the incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe, have centred their manifestos round these key points. However they’ve additionally dedicated to developments in science, know-how and analysis as important parts for Sri Lanka’s long-term growth.
Sri Lanka spends a mere 0.12 per cent of its GDP on analysis and growth (R&D), with the financial disaster additional drying up the obtainable funds. The nation can be going through a mind drain, with many scientists and professionals leaving as a consequence of deteriorating dwelling circumstances.
Emeritus professor Ranjith Senaratne, chair of the Nationwide Science Basis of Sri Lanka (NSF), mentioned the variety of researchers in Sri Lanka was extraordinarily low. The county has solely 105 R&D personnel per million of the inhabitants, in accordance with knowledge from the World Financial institution.
“There will be no progress with out analysis, so it’s vital for the following president to prioritise developments in science and know-how to safe Sri Lanka’s future,” Senaratne informed SciDev.Internet.
In an interview with SciDev.Internet, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, one of many 4 main candidates, emphasised his dedication to introducing new know-how, significantly within the agricultural sector the place 26 per cent of Sri Lankans are employed.
Dissanayake highlighted that present agricultural practices, resembling these in paddy farming, depart each farmers and customers in a troublesome place. He mentioned farmers are barely surviving, unable to earn a adequate revenue, whereas customers face excessive costs.
“This technique advantages nobody,” he pressured, including: “We should both abandon these outdated strategies or innovate by means of analysis.”
As an alternative of merely exporting uncooked commodities, Sri Lanka ought to give attention to worth addition to extend international trade earnings, prompt Dissanayake, acknowledging that this requires innovation.
“There may already be current analysis that hasn’t been utilised on the grassroots degree, and my precedence is to make sure that these improvements are carried out,” he informed SciDev.Internet.
Science training
Sri Lanka’s opposition chief, Sajith Premadasa, in the meantime, promised to determine a devoted analysis fund of a minimum of 5 billion Sri Lankan rupees (US$16.6 million) yearly to advertise science and know-how within the nation, viewing it as a long-term funding.
He defined that each state and personal universities would have the ability to apply for funds to assist analysis, growth and curriculum enhancement.
Premadasa can be centered on digitisation, aiming to capitalise on fast-growing fields like synthetic intelligence (AI) by creating quite a few cutting-edge info know-how parks. As opposition chief, he secured funding to introduce sensible lecture rooms to lots of of colleges, significantly in distant areas.
Crowds prove for an election rally forward of Sri Lanka’s presidential vote on 21 September. Picture courtesy of Nationwide Folks’s Energy Media.
“At present, science and know-how training is concentrated in main cities and prestigious faculties,” he informed SciDev.Internet, including: “It’s important to increase these alternatives to the youthful era throughout the nation.”
Ruwan Wijewardene, a senior advisor to the incumbent president, says Wickremesinghe plans to determine new technological universities, together with a College of Agriculture Expertise and an Worldwide Local weather Change College, a pledge he made final yr on the UN Local weather Convention COP28.
Wickremesinghe has additionally pledged to go a Expertise Promotion Act in 2025, establishing a Digital Transformation Company and a Digital Expertise and Innovation Council to spearhead AI and digital developments.
Namal Rajapaksa, the youngest contender within the race, is the son of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa and nephew of ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He’s focusing his marketing campaign on modernisation and technological progress.
Rajapaksa seeks to construct on initiatives launched throughout his uncle’s administration. His imaginative and prescient consists of streamlining authorities companies by chopping out out of date procedures and integrating superior technological options. His manifesto additionally outlines a plan to revamp instructional curricula, aligning them with present market calls for and societal traits to make sure Sri Lanka stays aggressive on the worldwide stage.
Nonetheless, whereas the presidential candidates’ proposals to advance science and know-how are promising, their implementation could also be difficult within the present financial local weather.
Rohan Samarajiva, founding chair of LIRNEasia, an ICT coverage and regulation suppose tank, says it’s uncertain how life like these guarantees are, with the nation nonetheless rated as being in “selective default”, which means it has delayed reimbursement on a few of its monetary obligations.
Sri Lanka’s mind drain
Whereas some candidates have pledged to determine new universities, sustaining the standard of the prevailing larger training system is already troublesome as a consequence of vital mind drain.
The Division of Chemistry, one of many largest departments on the College of Peradeniya, is scuffling with a staffing disaster and has needed to depend on retired professors, exterior lecturers and assistant tutorial employees. Manawadevi Ganehenege, the pinnacle of the division, informed SciDev.Internet she was involved in regards to the sustainability of training if extra employees members left.
In accordance with Sri Lanka’s Authorities Medical Officers’ Affiliation, greater than 1,800 medical doctors left the nation in 2022 and 2023. It says a minimum of 25 per cent of medical doctors at the moment working within the authorities well being system have additionally handed the exams required for employment overseas.
Manuj Weerasinghe, former president of the Sri Lanka Affiliation for the Development of Science, identified that investments in science and know-how are long-term endeavours, usually taking ten to twenty years to yield advantages. Politicians usually search fast outcomes throughout their time in workplace, which might conflict with the timeframes required for these investments to repay, he mentioned.
Restricted public curiosity in science may cut back the strain on politicians to prioritise such investments.
“I don’t suppose even one per cent of voters think about science a high precedence after they forged their ballots,” Weerasinghe informed SciDev.Internet. He argued that educating the general public in regards to the significance of science for growth is crucial.
This piece was produced by SciDev.Internet’s Asia & Pacific desk.