Adding Value to Humanities in Tertiary Education

by Dr D .Chandraratna

The study of humanities has been declining in the Western Universities lately for obvious reasons. There is a steep fall in the enrolments in liberal arts by limiting quotas for places in universities while at the same time there is a mad scramble to grab places in the Stem subjects, given endorsements by the market for ready-for-job placements upon graduation. A report released by Oxford university in July of this year, “The Value of the Humanities’ emphasised that in a survey conducted of 9000 past graduates from the year 2000 who had taken up humanities at Oxford, more than half were comfortably placed in the world of digitalization and AI and performing successfully. Professor Daniel Grimley, Head of the Humanities at Oxford reported that it was the resilience and the adaptability of the humanities graduates that made them productive in a rapidly changing labour market. Moreover, the humanities graduates were creative, keen, and able to develop new skills which employers value.

Traditional Role

Of course, in the traditional sense, humanities were valued for their role in undergirding civilisational strengths, and this applies to both Western and Eastern. Humanists are fond of cribbing from Gaugin, the French artist’s philosophical thought embedded in, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going’ painting to express the sensitivity to sensibilities of one’s own origins. The universities’ role was imparting cultural capital to explore, ‘Knowing where we come from and where we are heading’. Medieval universities both in the West and East were organic centres which buttressed their own cultures and civilisation through liberal arts, by subjecting the same to critical scrutiny, and citing learned authority in debate.

Remember how Samuel Huntington’s thesis immensely helped the rhetoric of Moscow and Beijing to question the self-proclaimed greatness of Western dominance and exult in opposition the greatness of Indian, Persian, Chinese and Russian and other Oriental civilisations. These were great civilisations no doubt, prior to the European Renaissance which were stolen by upstart maritime European powers. Professor Kotkin, who authored the Oxford Report, says, ‘In fact Americans barely exist when it comes to Russian or Chinese history’, and this is not intended to glorify any of the current powers in a political sense.

Why humanities are important in the modern context is that humanism has an important role to play in the dynamics of the modern world. The salient fact that humanism has in its favour is its affinity with every religion. It is bound up with all great religious philosophies of the world.

If ancient religions of Western Christendom exalted humankind, Eastern religions added the environment and the animal world to supplant its beauty and goodness. All religions have given cognitive capacity to rise above the existential crisis of human life. Renaissance paintings of Leonardo and Raphael depicted this humanistic gift to humans by showing the divine realm that humans can aspire to in their master pieces.

Resilience and Adaptability

Modern day humanities are reconstructed to search for excellence in the secular world and to be made useful in finding answers to current problems. Study of history, literature, art, creative writing, and music should be made the perfect foundation for readying graduates to solve our existential problems and be adaptable to learning technical and vocational applications. As was evident in the debate anent automation and AI it was the humanistic argument that reverberated loudly. The Oxford Report highlights the value of that potential threat to civilisational existence when rival civilisations are sometimes sleepwalking to tragedy.

Structural Divide in Sri Lanka

To be relevant to the Sri Lankan context there are many lessons to be learnt. We are in a situation of humanities degree inflation and as Professor Amarasiri de Silva pointed out in a recent article that our resources are wasted through rote learning, unable to cultivate a creative impulse in the humanities. Recently, the Australian Minister of Education praised the universities on their high ranking in the world stage and pointed out that over 100,000 papers come out each year and 400-500 books from the university sector alone, other than textbooks for students. We, on the other hand, run after credentialism through the humanities which is a grim misuse of its hidden potential in our country.

It has only created a degree inflation in the marketplace. Our universities churn out humanities graduates, each worth less than the previous one. Sri Lanka has created a deep, unbridgeable distinction between humanities and vocational education to add to the watertight compartmentalization of Arts and sciences from the stage of secondary education. It has created a structural barrier between the two sectors hindering the young from combining humanities learning with a VET qualification to build up a useful career.