By Kalinga Seneviratne
Uncertainty in the wake of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis that forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapakse to flee the country in 2022 has driven an unprecedented wave of graduate migration out of the country, with the health sector alone losing 4,000 professional staff trained under what is still a free national education system.
The loss of graduates has fuelled a debate on whether higher education should continue to remain free and without a bonding system to keep graduates at home, at least for a few years after graduation.
A study by Wasantha Athukorala and Lakshman Kumara at the University of Peradeniya showed that around 30% of Sri Lankan university graduates migrate after completing their studies, with the majority never returning to contribute to the country’s economy.
Athukorala, an economics professor, pointed out in an interview with University World News that about 45,000 students enter government-funded universities each year, while thousands more enrol in government-maintained technical colleges and the Open University.
Delving into the statistics for 2019 to 2023, he found that one-third of the 138,980 who graduated from state universities had gone overseas. The most mobile graduated from management, computer sciences, health, engineering, technology and architecture degree programmes.
He estimated it costs the state around LKR500,000 (US$1,660) a year to educate a single student, or around LKR2 million (US$6,620) for a four-year degree. Government investment in the tertiary sector in 2023 was LKR83 billion (US$275 million), excluding capital expenditure.
According to his calculation, it cost the government LKR96 billion (US$318 million) over the period of his five-year study to educate all those who left the country.
Poor economic planning
Describing his research as “eye-opening”, Athukorala said: “Now [the government] understands that there is a serious issue here.”
The government is currently consulting with top Sri Lankan professionals overseas on measures to reform higher education and attract back those who have left, Deputy Minister for Higher Education Dr Madhura Senevirathna told the Sunday Morning newspaper on 24 August.
“One of the central weaknesses of [the] Sri Lanka’s education system has been its disconnection from broader economic planning,” he noted.
“For decades, universities produced graduates in fields such as arts, social sciences, and general sciences without adequately matching them to the skills demanded by the labour market. As a result, graduates often found themselves underemployed or unemployed at home, even as foreign economies eagerly absorbed their expertise.”
“We are consulting with leading Sri Lankan academics and professionals, both here and abroad, to identify the bottlenecks,” he added. “They have been very clear in their feedback: unless Sri Lanka can offer competitive salaries, credible research platforms, and opportunities for career advancement, there is no incentive to return.”
According to Athukorala, three types of people are leaving. “One is those who go for higher studies, such as a PhD, and don’t return [if they are not bonded]. The second [are] those who are funded by their parents, [who] even [sell] their properties to send them abroad. The third goes overseas to study and look for employment.
“The graduates who are going abroad are an extremely clever group,” he said.
“Because they get first-class [degrees] and they are very, very good people, we can’t ask them to stay here if they want to find better employment overseas.”
Health professionals
Peradeniya Chair Professor of Community Dentistry, Dileep de Silva, a specialist in health finance, said migration of health professionals stands at around 10% of total health professionals in active service.
The healthcare system in the country dates back to 1856. “The Sri Lankan Ministry of Health started then. It’s a very mature, resilient system. So, system turbulence does not come from a one or two per cent shortage. It comes when it hits 15%,” he told University World News.
Sri Lanka spends about 1.6% of GDP on higher education. The per capita cost of training a medical doctor is LKR5.6 million (US$18,535) for the five-year course. “It’s a taxpayer’s money. When they have got that free education, they leave. It’s a loss, definitely,” argued de Silva.
Professor Saman Nanayakkara, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Peradeniya University, said: “When doctors go, replacement is not that easy. It takes so long to educate them; you’re looking at five to six years.”
“Because of this exodus of health staff, both academic and non-academic, our faculty is affected, and we can’t take more students and teach more,” Nanayakkara told University World News. “When doctors leave, [then] the academic staff leave as well. Over the last five years, we have lost five members in my department.”
“The government is not going to advertise all those positions because they cannot provide salaries. So how can we increase the number of students?”
The professors concur about the need for some form of bonding for new graduates, especially in the health sector, because countries like Australia, the United Kingdom and, lately, Singapore and countries in the Middle East are poaching Sri Lankan graduates.
“I think we have to make bonding binding,” stressed de Silva. “It is not because they [rich countries] can’t train. They know it is easier for them to buy a product from a supermarket.”
Huge demand for Sri Lankan doctors
Dr Chamil Wijesinghe, media spokesperson for the Government Medical Officers Association, told University World News:
“Because of the higher standards maintained within the medical education system of this country as well as our health system, there is a huge demand for Sri Lankan doctors internationally.”
Pointing to a recent example, he said: “In 2024, the College of Respiratory Physicians, Sri Lanka, received an email from the National Health Service in the UK, advertising for 30 vacancies for respiratory physicians.”
The migration of talent also comes at a cost to the local economy, said Priyanga Dunusinghe, a professor in the Department of Economics at Colombo University.
“When professionals migrate, you lose a productive workforce, and you cannot attract foreign capital or investments.”
“For example, if doctors go abroad, then the most talented nurses also will go because they find it [the working environment] increasingly becoming less productive, and they’ll become less satisfied with this environment,” according to Dunusinghe.
“Most people look at the cost in terms of losing the invested money, but beyond that, the contribution they should have made to the economy is vast,” he noted. It is “beyond what we have invested”.
“When they leave, especially at [the] university level, when they get a free education and leave, that whole investment is wasted.”
He suggested Sri Lanka look at the model adopted by Singapore, which opened up its economy to foreign talent and foreign investment, creating the kind of well-paid jobs that migrating graduates are looking for.
Sri Lanka instead restricts incoming non-Sri Lankan talent, without restricting outgoing talent.
“Singapore has done it the other way around,” Dunusinghe said. “They don’t give free education at university.”
Those who receive Singapore government scholarships are subject to a bond of around three years after graduation, when they must work for a Singaporean company. Malaysia also operates a bond system for those who receive government scholarships, he said.
This article was first published in University World News a and is republished here with the kind permission of the author.
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