FUTA, you are a Federation of University Teachers Associations, but your behavior now is well beyond the mandate of a trade union. This is not a criticism but a complement that is long overdue. It is indeed one of the responsibilities of the learned community to make them heard loud and clear when things are going wrong. Imagine what would happen to a bus, if the passengers did nothing about a drunken or a sleepy driver? Therefore, one need not drive but be vigilant as it is for your own safety that you must ensure your driver is awake, capable and accountable. Simply, this is no different in respect of the country we live in and the leaders who govern it.
by Chula Goonasekera, Peradeniya
(July 05, Kandy, Sri Lanka Guardian) Dear FUTA, Where were thou all this time? Having watched what you have achieved over the last 8 weeks, including bringing the whole university system to a grinding halt, I wonder for a moment whether you had been injected with a ‘steroid’ or something. The scholarly debate that has sprung up in the print and electronic media as a consequence is immense and is by itself of sufficient magnitude to design an unprecedented National Policy for Education in our country. What I cannot understand is why such high powered intellectuals, took so long to wake up? Have they been the proverbial Rip Van Winkle! I hope not that you have opened your eyes wide because your bed has been badly shaken and your own existence threatened? Is your behavior likely to be that of a pussy cat, which makes a roar when under stress but once fed, re-settles and goes to sleep again in its own cozy corner of comfort? Or else are you intending to keep the roar, and sail the boat in rough waters in the right direction and help us all to get safely ashore?
Did you know what damage we suffered as a country, whilst you were sleeping all this time? You may not have realized that some of your own members shed their learned principles and values and nodded yes, yes and yes to everything for their own selfish gain? They pretended that they were advising the leaders but in return they fooled them for their own benefit sometimes turning 360 against their own professional principles? For example, how many of your members worked and advised against the established fundamental pillars of a successful higher education system, i.e. against Academic Freedom and University Autonomy? I am glad that His Excellency the President at last seems to have identified some of them in the banking system. He named them ‘Economic Assassins’. It will not be too long before, I hope the ‘Educational Assassins’ are also recognized. Haven’t these ‘Assassins’ fooled us all in return for what we have in this country today- malnutrition, poverty, debts, violence, fear, lawlessness and most of all uncertainty?
You may recall that Somalia, Sri Lanka and Singapore were of equal status of development at independence. We had similar incomes. Today, 50 years later, Somalia is producing sea pirates, Sri Lanka is begging for money and exporting house maids where as Singapore is flying high in economic prosperity. How have the outcomes become so different? Who is responsible? FUTA, are you aware of any country in the world that has prospered by exporting housemaids?
FUTA, you are a Federation of University Teachers Associations, but your behavior now is well beyond the mandate of a trade union. This is not a criticism but a complement that is long overdue. It is indeed one of the responsibilities of the learned community to make them heard loud and clear when things are going wrong. Imagine what would happen to a bus, if the passengers did nothing about a drunken or a sleepy driver? Therefore, one need not drive but be vigilant as it is for your own safety that you must ensure your driver is awake, capable and accountable. Simply, this is no different in respect of the country we live in and the leaders who govern it. This is why we cannot simply ignore what our politicians do as we cannot just hope that we would get safely from A to B with them alone in the driving seat. However, FUTA needs to be careful, as there are times when the victim had been made the culprit. Just as much a passenger could be arrested for disturbing the driver (even if was about his drunkenness). Already some are talking of the FUTA as being the ‘fist’ of the IMF to destroy the national universities, the very same thing that you are trying to protect. Thus, FUTA you may be finally held responsible for all ailments in education. One never knows.
Over the last 60 years since independence, in this country, the politicians and the political processes have fought their way in the political frontlines promising more and more subsidies to the public and perks to the favorites in return for their vote and support. Once elected, they ate into all the reserves of the country to keep their promises. FUTA, some of your members too fell in love with such politics and turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the reality. More lately, since there were no more reserves left, the politicians have resorted to obtain more and more loans, holding future generations to ransom and worse of all ‘selling’ shares of the land (with whatever conditions) and business monopolies (Shell gas was a perfect example sometime ago) to foreigners for minute gains. Still, our blinded colleagues were jubilant that we are on the right path. They still refuse to accept the fact that as a result of their retarded attitudes, we have become at least 20 times poorer than our well known contender, Singapore, equal in per capita earnings at the beginning of our independence. FUTA, sadly, some of your own members who understood that we all were going down on this treacherous slope, without fighting back, quietly took flight instead. We now see the consequences of such lethargy. I am glad that you are taking a strong stand at least now and fighting the issue face to face. Please do not be sure that what is good today will remain good for ever. For example take Free Education. This was intended to reach as many as possible, taking off the ‘cost factor’. Today the same is used to curb education by not expanding its opportunities and systematically reducing its funding. Thus, now we have to fight for ‘equitable quality education’ rather than for ‘free education’ in its current form.
In Sri Lanka, not only FUTA members, the true national workers of this country as a whole are comparatively paid less and less. For example, the highest ranking government officer earns 20-25 dollars a day. In developed countries, a similar ranking officer would earn 10 times more. Then, why is the government is continuing to keep the salaries so low? A good question is best debated in the open? We simply cannot bridge the gap.
Today, we are a nation with a large international debt, mostly cumulated via less productive, incomplete, inefficient and wasteful politically motivated projects. Yet, we still spend large sums of money for matters of trivial importance. For example, to support a jumbo Cabinet, to hold frequent elections, flamboyant tamashas and to run massive election campaigns at national expense.
FUTA, did you know that the developed status of a country directly correlates with the proportion of university graduates it has in its working class? The participation rate (by default and not by choice) in university education in this country is only 3% of the relevant age cohort. In other words, only 3 children out of 100 will enter state universities of this country to follow higher education courses. This proportion is extremely low when compared to some other countries in the region such as Bangladesh 10%, India 12%, Malaysia 20% and the developed countries such as Australia 40%, and United Kingdom 50%. Thus, if we are serious of developing our country, whether the government is blue, red, green or gray mix, they would no doubt have to invest heavily in improving our higher education. Your demand for 6% GDP for Education is meager to rectify the mistake. This matter is of such importance, any political party or agency disrupting or destroying university education should be considered anti-national.
FUTA, you cannot afford to go back to sleep once again even if you are fully compensated now. If you do so, you may not even have any members in your organization when you wake up next. Your motto should be, as once Tony Blair, perhaps the most popular all time Prime Minister of England who served 3 terms said, ‘my campaign is firstly for education, secondly for education and also thirdly for education’. The role of education in national development is so vast, i.e., in the economic, political, cultural, scientific and technological fields and even in raising social standards, it behooves on the government of any country to provide education for enviable development to be achieved. To ensure that, there is no choice, FUTA must take the lead and seriously think of placing a few representatives (through a general election of course) on constant vigil at the highest place where the politicians meet, increasingly to snare their share before any care is offered to the rest– turn around and reserve a daring sum for education, i.e. in the Parliament. This is because the current paradigm of parliamentary representation has brought us nothing but decay over the last few decades.
