The relevance of tution

As I mentioned before, Indi's Mum has blogged on the notion of Free Education. The argument for factoring in the cost/benefits of tution into the debate about private unis seems to me to be irrelevant. After all, each student is provided with the "level playing field" that is the Free Education System. The way I see it, anything beyond that is an individual's private choice made by the parent(s) of each child over which the state should not concern itself. That is, unless the students are being harmed by the tution system. If this is the case I'm sure there are many ways the state can use it's apparatus to bring the tution industry into line. As it did a few years back by making mandatory school attendance rates for students. Is the tuition industry a form of middle-class angst in SL?

On the point about the "modified Z!-Score" I won't bite other than to ask, do you really want a 1984 style Animal Farm?

As an aside, the article states

... a decreasing business tax base, increasing VAT burden on the populace, and the ever ready supply of loans from foreign donors.

Sri Lanka is a developing third world country. Show me a country that has developed in the past 50 years and ended at the same time with a lower overall tax base. Is this also suggesting that a majority of SL businesses in the globalized future will be using off-shore tax heavens ?

I find this to be an unreasonable expectation. No doubt excessive taxes and debts are bad for economic development but seriously, even with high levels of public/private partnerships do you expect poverty to be eradicated without appropriate tax measures and higher debt? I suspect that the political imperative to eradicate poverty will eventually overcome the technocratic arguments, as in Thailand[WDB].