NICD and the Co-operative Path of Education and Democracy Ahilan Kadirgamar

Sri Lanka mired in a deep economic depression requires mammoth efforts to lift itself out of the crisis. The Government has many economic policy challenges, including immediate relief to the people, rejuvenating production of the contracted economy, and sustainable financing for longer-term development. The Budget for 2025 to be announced this week should at least provide some direction if not the allocations for arresting the decline. In this column, I address the robust organising of society and key institutions necessary to address economic problems, including the strengthening of our food system which is so crucial for our survival.

For close to five decades, we have been living in the myth that markets will ensure prosperity.

However, not only do markets fail to organise society and increase social inequalities, they, in fact, disrupt existing organisations through massive fluctuations in supply and demand, not to mention monopolistic practices leading to high prices and extractive profits.

Today, this is evident from the worrying disruption of the rice markets. While Sri Lanka has been more or less self-sufficient in rice, our staple food, for a number of decades, we have seen shortages and a massive increase in the price of rice over the last few months. This is the consequence of abandoning the public distribution system consisting of the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB), co-operative rice mills, and the shops attached to the Multi-Purpose Co-operative Societies. If such purchase, milling and distribution of paddy and rice had continued, the availability and affordability of rice would not be a problem today.

In this column, I address the sleeping giant in our country, the co-operative movement, which needs to wake up and organise our people outside of the logic of markets. In particular, I address the revival of the National Institute of Co-operative Development (NICD), and its importance as a centre of co-operative education and research, so urgently necessary for galvanising the co-operative movement.

Co-operative School

The Co-operative School begun in 1943, was renamed NICD by an act of parliament in 2001. Its vast twenty-two acre campus, was an important space for the training of co-operators and co-operative department officers for decades, particularly as the co-operative movement saw tremendous growth between the mid-1940s and mid-1970s. Indeed, for co-operation to succeed, it is not assets, but people that are crucial. To organise the working people and small scale producers, outside the dominance of the extractive businesses, the values and strategies of co-operation instilled through education and training are paramount.

In this context, the undermining of co-operatives over the long decades of liberalisation, and the more recent attack on NICD, are of concern. Two years ago, NICD was labelled a loss-making State Owned Enterprise (SOE) under the IMF reform programme, without considering its education mandate. In fact, NICD was to be liquidated last year, and only survived because of the struggles of co-operators and activists that came forward to defend it.

Sri Lanka is often ahead of even the United States when it comes to regressive policies. President J. R. Jayewardene took forward neoliberal policies – known locally as the open economy reforms – two years ahead of President Ronald Reagan. Similarly, Ranil Wickremesinghe was stripping down state assets for private gain two years before the return of Donald Trump. Indeed, NICD along with numerous other state institutions such as the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) were to be liquidated, and barely escaped with regime change, but only after having lost much of their human resource capacity. If there is to be a course correction of the economy, these shredded institutions, including NICD, CWE and PMB, have to be revived, but with a vision that suits the current challenges.

Leadership, Research and Training

I had the opportunity last week to attend a two-day strategy meeting at the NICD, along with a couple hundred co-operative leaders, officers, researchers and activists. I was impressed by the wide interest in the future of NICD. The new Chairman of NICD, Mr. Upali Herath, a former Principal of the institution at its peak in the 1970s, and who has considerable national and international experience relating to co-operatives, has the unenviable task of rebuilding it. He is supported by an experienced set of Board members, from different disciplines including banking.

The immediate challenge for NICD will be to find avenues for stabilising its finances and recruiting staff committed to co-operatives. Furthermore, there needs to be a longer-term strategy of growing NICD in parallel to rebuilding the co-operative movement.

In this context, both the future of NICD and the co-operative movement will depend on their relevance for developing rural livelihoods, strengthening the food system, engaging the youth and creating a next generation of co-operators. All that requires a robust agenda of research on contemporary economic challenges and new models of co-operatives for the twenty-first century.

Furthermore, the existing cadre of co-operative employees and department officials responsible for regulation have to be retrained. For this, NICD needs a new set of co-operative educators, not one of bookish lecturers, but those who are co-operative practitioner-educators.

The Co-operative School dates back to the very year that free education was enshrined with the Kannangara Report in 1943. That was a time when decolonisation and democratisation forged visions of education for a new society. Co-operatives perhaps more than any other institution are grounded on principles of education and democracy. As we face the challenges of the most devastating social and economic crisis since Independence, one way forward is through co-operation. And if we are to take that co-operative path of revitalising social relations with education and democracy, NICD will have to be revamped to play a crucial role.

(This article was originally published in the Daily Mirror on February 17, 2025)