Why Aesthetic Education Needs A Breakthrough In Sri Lankan Universities?

By Saumya Liyanage –NOVEMBER 2, 2020

Dr. Saumya Liyanage

There has been a long debate on why aesthetic education is needed for a balanced development of a human being. Further, it is also widely discussed that how theatre, dance, music, visual arts, and other art forms could contribute to a sustainable development of a country. UNESCO along with the UNDP published a series of documents after a global survey of creative industries in 2008, 2010, and 2018. These reports showed how these industries directly contribute to the development of national economies. In Sri Lanka, along with sustainable development project initiated in 2015, this discussion was germinated and subsequently forgotten when other priorities of development agendas dominated in the local elections and political debates. This paper therefore intends to discuss the current situation of aesthetic studies in Sri Lankan Universities and also argue how this aesthetic education needs to be revitalized in the wake of 21st century to meet current pedagogical reforms. Further this paper suggests that fine arts and other related degrees need a drastic and qualitative change in order for these disciplines to survive in the torrents of neo-liberal economic changes taking place in the local and global scale.

Currently, there are many departments and schools that teach aesthetic subjects in Sri Lankan Universities. University of the Visual and Performing Arts (UVPA) Colombo, University of Sri Jayawardanapura, University of Peradeniya, Sri Palee Campus, University of Colombo, University of Kelaniya, Swami Vipulananda Institute of Aesthetic Studies (SVIAS) in Batticaloa and Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts, Jaffna University are some of them. Among these institutes, UVPA which was established in 2015 is the only university with three faculties to teach music, theatre, dance, and visual arts. Recently established Government University faculties such as faculties of technology also have aesthetic components to teach dance, film appreciation, theatre, and music. Rationale behind introducing aesthetics subjects to science streams provides a limited understanding of the value and scope of aesthetic studies. A few decades back, the debate was about whether arts can be used to change social differences; to ignite revolutionary sentiments; or to emancipate people from their oppressive apparatuses. Now the discussions about arts and aesthetics have been shifted from arts for political purposes to arts for individual healing. Hence, there are two key arguments that are ambivalent in the field of arts, especially in pedagogical context: first, aesthetic education is valid because it cultivates empathy. Secondly, it is vital for human development because it heals minds of people.

Empathy & Beyond

In aesthetic education, one of the key concepts to be realized through arts is the idea of empathy. However, within the context of Sri Lankan academia, the understanding of the idea of empathy is limited and also misleading.  Etymologically the idea of empathy is understood as the ability to feel and relate to other person’s feelings and emotions. But there are many interpretations and definitions to the concept of empathy found in literature.

The idea of empathy is always defined through individual attainment of arts. The artiste as a social being demonstrates this higher emotional quality of empathy through expressing her feelings and emotions via artistic practice. One misleading factor in this understanding is that the idea is devoid from its social and intersubjective domain. This interpretation is misleadingly confined to an emotional quality that is being generated in the head of the artist and expresses through her/his artistic mode. But what I am arguing here is that the idea of empathy does not confine to an individual creator but is always intersubjective. Let me explain the idea of intersubjectivity that has been first developed by philosopher Edmund Husserl and later developed by other phenomenologists such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricœur, and Sartre. The notion of intersubjectivity refers to the embodied mind (the mind that is not limited to a particular brain of the body but operates throughout the body) and further not limiting to an individual but understood as a social phenomenon. In other words, intersubjectivity is the human mind that operates beyond the limits of a brain or the human body but going beyond the self-reference to the other environments including other bodies of human beings. Therefore, the ultimate target of aesthetic education is not confined to develop empathic individuals but it depicts wider and broader objectives bringing inter-human understanding, engagement, and collaboration.

Tradition and Preservation

Preserving and promoting traditional arts and craft can be one way of learning and embodying traditional knowledge pertaining to arts and crafts. However, many of the fine arts departments in the Sri Lankan University sector are merely focusing on studying the history of arts and craft and preserving traditional forms. Preservation and archiving is a matter related to other institutions but not for Universities. Universities are established to revive those traditions. Therefore, it is pathetic to assume that the preservation and learning the histories of arts and crafts is still the core of our arts education. UGC led quality assurance programs and World Bank funded projects have been trying to promote restructuring existing degree programs. (The argument is that a quality education today is accessible with the IT and English language proficiency. This assumption is partially true. For instance, current scholarships in theatre and performance studies are successfully accessible only through English language). But departments of fine arts, theatre, and dance have not been able to comply with those proposals and suggestions to restructure their curricula in order for candidates to achieve research and other professional targets. One of the major obstacles is the less competent academics who teach arts and traditional practices of dance and drama. They are not ready to take new initiatives and challenges to change and integrate new subject contents. It is clearly observed that English language proficiency and IT skills among traditional academia are very minimal. Therefore they create a shield of ‘preservation of tradition’ and ‘nationalistic sentiments’ depicted in traditional curricula to safeguard their inabilities to deliver new curriculum reforms.

As discussed earlier, the major threat to the new reforms is less competent academic community who continuously oppose to those new reforms. The majority of those so called academics have a traditional training and they are much into craftsmanship than being academically qualified individuals. Hence they are less competent to write curriculum, apply new assessment methods, and deliver subject contents in a language other than their mother tongue. The track record of their publications, research, and collaborative projects with other Higher Education Institutes (HEI) are minimal and the pedagogical system is merely operated as traditional ‘kalayathana’ model.

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