Lessons for a sustainable future

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak

Learning Curve: Perspective

New Sunday Times - 05-05-2013

 

RETHINK NEEDED: Higher education, which metaphorically is the garment of future society, will crumble if built upon unsustainable principles

 

 

THE recent garment factory building collapse in Bangladesh has raised a number of questions even as rescuers are still unearthing bodies in the debris.

 

Reportedly, it may take several more days to clear the rubble. So far more than 400 are confirmed dead and another 150 are still missing.

 

Some claimed that the number of casualties is higher. This, after all, has been described as the worst disaster for Bangladesh's US$20 billion (RM30 billion)-a-year garment industry that supplies global retailers.

 

The culprits have been taken into custody and are expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction (adding more floors without approval) and forcing employees to work despite warnings of cracks in the building structure.

 

The Bangladesh High Court has ordered the government to confiscate the property and freeze the assets of the owners of the factories.

 

The five garment makers in the building produced several million shirts, pants and other apparel a year.

 

Some of us may wear such produce without knowledge of the working conditions. Are we then not partly guilty of supporting such as a slavish sector?

 

For a long time, similar industries in many developing countries have had the "fortune" of being the focus of foreign investment, especially from more developed economies.

 

But this is not always the case. It is often alleged that international retailers and manufacturers invest in a country due to advantages such as duty-free access, low cost and, most of all, dirt-cheap talent. They are prepared to close their eyes to the double standards employed in the name of more profiteering, while overlooking the potential hazards that such a policy can cause.

 

A lot of companies have no scruples about venturing offshore without regard for international standards of the workplace and worker rights.

 

Yet, in their home countries, complaints about jobs being exported overseas are aplenty, resulting in a high rate of unemployment among local citizens.

 

This is more so in times of the economic meltdown experienced by the Western hemisphere. Indeed, job "loss" is moving up the value chain.

 

The tendency is to make it easier to fire workers (including professionals now) in times of austerity. The trend is to hire or outsource offshore.

 

In economically-stricken countries such as Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and others in the eurozone, the problems are worsening. Spain, for example, has the highest unemployment rate in the Western world with more than 25 per cent out of a job according to Eurostat.

 

And it is expected to rise, creating an unequalled situation since the Great Depression! Greece is not too much different either, with Cyprus joining the bandwagon.

 

Compared to the figures in 2008, 10 more million are said to be unemployed in Europe. Austerity measures do not seem to have addressed the root causes of the crisis nor have they brought down unemployment, according to a recent International Labour Organisation report on the state of global labour markets.

 

Young and low-skilled workers are the hardest hit but the highly talented are not immune either. Even the well-educated workforce faces a bleak future. The Labour Day celebrations in several countries bring into focus the dire situation globally.

 

The irony is that while workers in developing countries such as Bangladesh are paid pittance, developed nations are confronting downward pressures on wages that are said to be damaging productive investment and intra-European Union trade.

 

This is despite the recognised structural issues that have led to the current economic crisis allegedly at the epicentre of it all.

 

All these highlight the importance of a "sustainable future" that calls upon universities to rethink how they can be better organised, and the knowledge structure as well as content aligned with the goals of the United Nations Decade Of Education For Sustainable Development, which ends next year.

 

This was the subject of intense discourse in Edmonton, Canada at the recent 15th North American Higher Education Conference organised by the Consortium of North American Higher Education Collaboration and themed Towards A Sustainable Future -- The Role Of International Education.

 

Higher education and its multi-billion industry, which metaphorically is the garment of future society, will also crumble if built upon unsustainable principles internationally.

 

- The writer is the vice-chancellor of the Albukhary International University