Soporific? That’s a bit low isn’t it? Especially since you are judging me on one albeit ill fated encounter. Your post is almost Morq – endian. Yes we must clear up our differences. When you coming to London?

Ru – who are you??

Indi and Morq are intellectually as stubborn as the proverbial mule. How is anything of consequence going to come out of this thesis and antithesis if this (perceived) intellectual arrogance is going to continue.

Both you buggers have your heads so far up your arses you can’t see for shit.

Electra you are perceptive and honest to the point of being attractive – are you fit??

And Chanuka’s right…I HATE WHISKEY!!!!!!!!! I’m more an Arrack person. It’s cheaper. And more easily available.

It’s been a long time since the Katukambi though. Wouldn’t mind trying some out again.

And if this is not World Bank poropaganda I don’t know what is. Propaganda 101 in Indi’s university says (taught by followers of the McCarthy method of dealing with dissent) ‘If anyone questions the market system, yell ‘COMMIE!’ If anyone questions the World Bank, yell ‘COMMIE!’. My classes in this subject haven’t been as comprehensive. I didn’t get my money’s worth. Bastard commies and their indoctrination schools! Next time I’m going to Capitalist U. Maybe that’ll bring me upto speed with Indi.

Dammit! Capitalism U also taught him Character Assassination better than Commie U where I went. Want to do a few classes for me? Clearly my character assassination skills are nothing when compared to what Indi had displayed in this post. Simply masterful. Want to be my guru?

Guys, let us not insult Marx, Lenin and Stalin by calling these idiots ‘communists’. They do not even know the basics of communism. They assume, the welfare system we practice today is something we’ve got from Stalin’s Soviet Union! Ha! Ha!! Shows clearly how much they know. Sometimes Morquendi might be surprised to learn that no communist country ever followed the same stupid model we follow here, and if at all there were a ‘father’ to the model we have here it was not Vladimir Ilyich Lenin – or even Lunacharsky, Lenin’s Minister of Education if I remember correctly – but a post WW II British Prime Minister called Clement Atlee! (Fortunately for the British, Thatcher undid most of that in late 1980s)

And also for your information Morquendi, (You badly need some education man!) the free market concept is NOT an invention of World Bank. Free markets existed ever since the beginning of the humankind and free trade at international was there not centuries, but millennia before the WB! So called Private Universities (ie. Non-state owned universities) too are nothing new. Some of them were more than 2,500 years old. Thakshila in India was one of the best examples. Shanthi Nikethan and Banaras Hindu University are two more famous non-state owned universities. So please don’t give credit to WB for something they never did man!

It seems that Morq has taken Character Assasination 202. Rather than looking for structural problems in my argument he’s gone right for the jugular. Yes, I am corrupt, and maybe there’s even a blowjob scandal in there. If he’s an A student, he’ll start attacking my family next.

Remember kids, if thinking gets too hard remember Propaganda 101. World Bank bad! Capitalism bad! If anybody questions the ideology they are reactionary and corrupt!

For starters, just re-read what you posted above–it is so replete with contradictions that if it werent sad it would be funny. Someone who can’t figure out the function of [ ] is a poor advertisement for Sri Lanka’s public education system.

And Electra, it is a farce to equate Morq and Indi by saying they are just two opinions. There is a HUGE qualitative difference between the two–one whose opinion is backed with empirical evidence and the other who has basically been burping and threatening to fart out WB secrets from Indi’s cupboard. C’mmon give me a break.

Moving on, again, you fail to understand the system in Sri Lanka. While this debate was originally about the issue of private universities you need to understand that opening a zillion private universities and pumping in more money to state universities (which is what you and I have been saying) is not going to change anything if we don’t reform the entire education system in Sri Lanka. The issue of private universities is only a small part of bigger picture that you refuse to see.

I am not saying we don’t need reform. We do. I have said that in public fora long before you came to Sri Lanka.

And I did not say that my little suggestion was going to be the complete solution. You just assumed that, like you generally do. Did you even read that comment properly and understand what was suggested? I was just offering an alternative to closing down non-urban schools. I most certainly believe that is not going to solve the bigger problem, and your assumption that I meant that is silly. Also your lack of tolerance is shocking. Your clear disregard for the opinions of others reeks of the World Bank’s agenda.

Again, I am horrified by your scathing personal attack on me. It was completely unprovoked and can only prove to the world how you chose to end a debate. I only took part in this online debate because I thought you had the capacity to carry out an intelligent argument. But you have proven otherwise. Your style is closer to the pseudo-left-wing JVP than to anything else.

Your inability to even consider the alternative is a very clear indication of your blind faith in what the World Bank says. I have read almost all the documents that the World Bank has put out in Sri Lanka with regard to this and strangely I agree with many of the things they say about the need for reform. I even agree with them on many of the suggested reforms, especially in the sections with regard to vocational training and job-oriented higher studies. I think in these areas they have a lot of things to contribute. But their proposals for primary and secondary school reforms are not acceptale because they do not take into account the system existing in Sri Lanka and the needs of the rural communities and the minority communities.

Because you do not understand Sri Lanka and her people you do not understand the divisions that the World Bank’s reforms will create. In an ideal Sri Lanka many of those suggestions would work. But there are complex socio-economic systems and conflicts that the World Bank just fails to see in their statistics. When you repeat the World Bank’s agenda you fail to see those dynamics too.

We have enough divisions in this country as it is. We have suffered for the past 50 years because of the shortsighted policies of people like you who do not understand that deprivation and alienation can only lead to conflict. We don’t need more. And we don’t need the World Bank and people like you creating them.

And Indi, why I asked you not to get personal is because you have a lot of skeletons in your closet that you might not even know about. I feel very very tempted this time, but because I have refused to make this debate personal I won’t.

What do the skeletons in my closet have to do with a debate on education? Character Asssasination 202?

[stuff within brackets] is generally taken as a paraphrase. In that case were you refering to another parent who was part of the push for reforms, besides my mom?

As to your alternative, it has nothing to do with Universities. You advocate closing urban primary schools and sending kids to rural primary schools. I fail to see how this creates any more space in the Universities. I asked you at least one specific question, how do you finance adequate universities at 270$ million dollars a year. One piece of reform in primary schools isn’t going to produce that windfall or reform the Universities. Or, to use a metaphor, the car has a flat tire and you adjusted the front seat.

After months of just playing around, I finally bring up an alternative and you freak out and launch a personal attack?

The WB’s instruction booklet didn’t have a chapter on how to deal with alternatives? No they didn’t did they? All they want to do is push their agenda, just like all you want to do is push your agenda.

You think you’re right (and in this case you don’t even have an idea that’s yours. You’re just stealing ideas from the WB), and when I offer you an alternative that we could talk about you dig through months of blog material and spend an insane amount of time writing a scathing personal attack.

You have clearly demonstrated your inability to continue an argument when your opponent finally says something intelligent. Oh I should’ve stopped playing with you long ago.

Sadly, you are also guilty of all that you accuse me of.

And Indi, why I asked you not to get personal is because you have a lot of skeletons in your closet that you might not even know about. I feel very very tempted this time, but because I have refused to make this debate personal I won’t.

And your assumptions are hilarious. You call me a commie, I’m honored. But sorry, I hate commies. If you spent some more time going through my blog you might have noticed that. You also call me a nationalist. First time I’ve been called that.

And I’m sorry to notice you have directly misquoted me. I ask you to correct that. Trashing me is one thing, telling the world that I said things I didn’t is not acceptable. I have never misquoted you, or misinterpreted anything you said for the sake of bolstering my argument. I am all for the you having the freedom to say what you want, but you cannot misquote people.

You claim I said

[Indi has] a parent who was an integral part of the push for WB-proposed reforms in the education system a few years ago…

When what I actually said was

Sorry. I don’t have slanted facts and stats. I don’t have a parent who was an integral part of the push for WB-proposed reforms in the education system a few years ago, and as a result of that has a very academic understanding of the issue and all the data and stats needed to counter people like me.

Trash me for what I’ve said, don’t make up quotes and trash me.

indi and morq aren’t taking their views anywhere important. whether or not the privatization takes place, still, at the end of the day, will NOT be affected by their bickering. i understand their concern for the countrie’s local ed system (i DO?!) but i simply cannot for the life of me comprehend this incessent arguing.

indi, morq, its not like either of you are going to back down. EVER. you’re not going to admit that one of you might be right, and the other wrong. indi keeps bringing up statistics from the WB, and morq keeps digging up dirt on indi’s family. whats the POINT? boys, its not going to change anything. i’m sorry. the truth is harsh, but it doesnt make it any less the truth! none of you are going to admit defeat. you are entitled to your opinions, and you both believe yourself to be the sole source of truth on this planet. how, and good god WHEN is this going to end?

you’re just going to end up hating each other, and the entire local blogosphere is going to end up sick and tired of this age old argument. and what for? you’re both perfectly capable, and intelligent and obviously very concerned for a national cause of distress. so take the concern elsewhere and do something productive with it! dont just sit on your asses and get online every night to bash each other up.

are you both seriously immature enough to think that you alone know the universal truth? haven’t you heard of something called an opinion? well people are allowed to have them, however different from your’s they may be! nothing is black and white. or right and wrong. or ‘indi’ and ‘morq’. you both obviously with powerful conviction have strong morals and principles that you intend to live by, no matter what. while i admire you for sticking your ground through this, maybe its time to broaden those narrow little things you call your minds to the fact that their might be more to life than YOUR debate, and YOUR perspective, and YOUR version of the truth. give me a break.

Chanuka says >>

Indi, What’s the big use of arguing with the same group of idiots? … They just go on and on saying the same thing again and again in different language. No sense of Economics. No sense of Mathematics. No sense of statistics. No sense of reality. No sense of logic. No brains. Just hearts. Just emotions hanging in the air!

That’s insightful commentary and ontopic debate right there. Stop the presses. We have a match made in heaven.

this comment is certified 100% irony free.
btw, Ru, either I know you in real life or there are a stunning set of coincidences…

What most of the participants seem to have forgotten is that Further Education is a MERIT good and not a public one. It is a commodity that is seen as socially and economically desirable, but under-supplied by the market; thus the government intevenes where it can to produce optimal supply. But Further education SHOULD be difficult to gain entry into, it should be difficult for a variety of reasons not the least being that it is based on potential performance and not just past results. Something someone said about affirmative action just occurred : “…(entry into further education) should be based on the potential a candidate has to exploit an opportunity that they may not have otherwise received and it should focus less on past performance”.

Old Boys’ clubs, corruption at entry-level and all the other hoo-ha may be a failure in the market mechanism to some, but I say, that’s just how it is in the Big League. No, corruption is evil and smelly (and exploitative) but the bottom half of income earners are the most likely to propogate corruption by bribery according to most development economists, and Transparency International (dare I use surveys and statistics to prove a point?). And Chinese communist ideology had “black” capitalist-roaders and “intellectuals” pulling up grass during the Cultural Revolution, methinks free(ish) markets are forward momentum.