The Faculties of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in State-owned and Government-operated public universities in Sri Lanka have long faced severe criticism for producing “unemployable graduates” (successive governments, higher education administrators, and the Auditor General’s Department). Our goal here is not to dispute these criticisms; rather, we aim to highlight an initiative to enhance the competitiveness of economics students at the University of Jaffna (UoJ), which is celebrating its golden jubilee year since its establishment on August 1, 1974, as the Jaffna campus of the former University of Sri Lanka (established on February 15, 1972, the successor to the University of Ceylon established by the British on July 1, 1942).
Role of N. Balakrishnan
Nagalingam Balakrishnan
One of the earliest faculty members of the Department of Economics at the University of Jaffna was the late Nagalingam Balakrishnan (N. Balakrishnan), who joined in 1974 from the Peradeniya Campus of the University of Sri Lanka. Balakrishnan, originally from Puloly South in Point Pedro (the Northernmost town of Sri Lanka), was a distinguished alumnus of Hartley College, Point Pedro. He completed his undergraduate education at the Peradeniya Campus of the University of Ceylon in the 1950s and remained there as a university teacher until the mid-1970s. To the best of our knowledge, Balakrishnan was the only notable scholar to have served the Department of Economics at Jaffna University to date.
A scholar is defined as a person with a considerable track record of research and publications in authentic and reputable academic journals, as well as having published books or book chapters in works released by recognised academic publishers.
For instance, Nagalingam Balakrishnan published several articles in the mid-1970s in the globally indexed journal “Asian Survey” (the successor to the “Far Eastern Survey”) published by the University of California.
He contributed several book chapters to internationally published volumes on the Sri Lankan economy, history, and society in the 1970s and 1980s, including works edited by Kingsley Muthumuni de Silva (K. M. de Silva), one of Sri Lanka’s foremost historians. These include “History of Sri Lanka,” published by the University of California Press in 1981, and “Sri Lanka: A Survey,” published in 1977 by the University of Hawaii Press.
Beyond being a scholar, Balakrishnan was also regarded as a gentleman by his former academic colleagues and students at the University of Peradeniya and the University of Jaffna. One of Balakrishnan’s distinguished students, Dr. Sarath Rajapathirana (a retired World Bank staff member), once remarked that Balakrishnan was a humble person and that he felt privileged to have been one of his students at Peradeniya in the 1960s.
The late Dr. Buddhadasa Hewavitharana, former Professor of Economics at the University of Peradeniya, paid a glowing tribute to Balakrishnan upon his passing, saying, “He was a mild-mannered gentle person with broad shoulders, the ample use of which he made available to anyone freely for airing their grievances.
N. Balakrishnan epitomised the true meaning of the phrase “gentleman and scholar.” It is extremely rare to find an academic of his stature in contemporary Sri Lankan academia.
Pedigree and pedagogy
Balakrishnan’s illustrious academic career highlights the inextricable relationship between pedigree and pedagogy; Puloly pedigree and Peradeniya pedagogy.
On the golden jubilee anniversary of the University of Jaffna, the Department of Economics is making efforts to revive the pedagogy of the past through student research and scholarship. While it may be impossible to fully emulate the past due to changes in the academic staff’s pedigree over the past 50 years, incremental steps can be taken to improve pedagogy through cutting-edge research. Research informs pedagogy, not vice versa.
Indispensability of research
I often remind my students that research outlives one’s lifetime. People may refer to or cite a person’s research publications even after their physical demise. Some of our students continue to refer to and cite the scholarly publications of N. Balakrishnan, even 11 years after his passing.
For the first time in the history of the Department of Economics, and indeed in the Faculty of Arts at Jaffna University, a small group of final-year economics students co-authored and published a rebuttal to a peer-reviewed article in BMJ Global Health [British Medical Journal] on the management of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka. Both the original article and the rebuttal, titled “Unveiling Oversights and Underreporting: A Rebuttal of Sri Lanka’s Covid-19 Response Analysis,” are freely downloadable.
Corrections to the scientific record, such as rebuttals and rejoinders, are an indispensable part of scientific knowledge generation and dissemination, reflecting critical thinking, a crucial cognitive skill for students in higher education. A longer piece was disseminated in popular media in Sri Lanka for wider public consumption.
A final-year student in economics at the University of Jaffna co-authored a seminal article in the globally indexed journal “World Economics” in June 2024, which is an unprecedented feat in the Faculty of Arts. Another final-year student contributed to a visual cum oral presentation on the economic and psychosocial costs of the Easter Sunday Bombings in Sri Lanka, presented at the 5th International Blast Injury Research Network Forum in Colombo on July 2, 2024, with the potential to develop it into a journal article.
Internships for upskilling
The Faculty of Arts at the University of Jaffna has introduced mandatory internships for final-year students to gain on-the-job experience, a practice adopted by other faculties and universities years ago. These internships aim to impart soft skills to students. At present, seven students from the Department of Economics are interning at leading social science think tanks in Colombo for the first time.
Way forward
These examples illustrate the tangible efforts made by the Department of Economics at the University of Jaffna to incentivise and motivate students to enhance their competitiveness in the labour market through cutting-edge research and dissemination at the global level and on-the-job skills acquisition at the national level. While Sri Lanka continues to reel under sovereign bankruptcy and labour market prospects are subdued, it is imperative to think outside the box to elevate the competitiveness of undergraduate students in the Faculties of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
