Present University Grants Commission Chairman got appointed due to serving President in election campaign and drafting his manifesto

dbsjeyaraj.com,


10 June 2012, 7:13 am

by S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

The University Grants Commission (UGC) never ceases to amaze me by its ability to posture through high principles which it never practices. Indika Sri Aravinda reports (Leader, 3 June) that the UGC will henceforth fine illegal doctorates and that according to the UGC Chairman, issuing doctorates for a payment is illegal.

In Sri Lanka the Universities Act purports to regulate the issuance of degrees but it really cannot regulate foreign degrees. Besides, even legitimate universities, including UGC universities, always require some payment by way of fees for any doctorate.

Reputable magazines like The Economist advertise degrees for ‘life experience.’ The organization’s ‘Affordable Career Degrees,’ for a payment, will issue doctorates with ‘no classes, no studies and no exams’ based on your knowledge and experience.

Ashwood University of Clinton, IA in the US offers a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree at $599 each, a Doctorate for $849, and all three together at the cut-rate price of $1,448!

If I choose to get a degree from them, on what basis would the UGC fine me? Their degrees are legitimate by a legitimate institution and their fees too are legitimate for assessing an applicant as they claim to do.

What one can question, however, is their degrees’ academic merit. The UGC has powers to recognize degrees and that is how these degrees should be tackled to save unwitting employers from employing the holders of such degrees and unwitting parents from marrying off their daughters to them.

On the other hand, the far more serious problem is when people without the requisite credentials take over our national universities and run them with their fake professorships. They rapidly infect the system and everything falls apart as has happened.

Consider the appointment of the present UGC Chairman in 2006 for services to the President in his 2005 election campaign and in drafting his manifesto. To be UGC Chairman, the only process is lobbying without any formal announcement, application, nomination or even a CV.

Now put politicians who need not have ever been to a university making that appointment – and we have the broad decay of universities we see today and appointments of unqualified stooges and ‘tail-holders,’ embezzlers, and party men from ministry lists without open advertisements, etc..

Our politicians’ only consideration is promoting the party, not the university system. Good academics whom we badly need, flee in horror.

The Chairman was a mere Associate Professor then without any academic lustre. At the UGC his reputation is that letters that he needs to write take a long time coming because he cannot write, but the Secretary’s (a career appointment) come out quickly.

In 2006 March the Chairman had already been appointed as VC Rajarata despite being only an Associate Professor and then was appointed to oversee the university system as UGC Chairman, making the rules for promotions, nominating persons to professorial selection committees, etc.

It was a wrong appointment when there were many more accomplished persons at the rank of professor and especially when he himself would have a conflict of interest in going through a promotion he would have a say on. No one dared to protest because we in the system rely on political favours or at least the favours of the politically favoured like our VCs. We got what we deserve.

The UGC website presently lists him as a Senior Professor at Peradeniya. In between he was listed as Professor, Rajarata. That is, if the claims are true, he has gone through a double promotion from Associate Professor in 2006 when he became Chairman to Professor and Senior Professor, and two changes of employer too (rather than a release from Peradeniya to be VC at Rajarata).

Circular 838 of 26 Jan. 2004 specifies for Senior Professor only two routes: A Professor who has completed a total of eight years of service as Professor (counting also the steps given at the time of appointment as service) or someone with a higher doctorate. A mysterious amendment through Circular 897 dated 8 July 2008 under this Chairman also allows steps at promotion to Professor to be counted.

The public has a right to know from where he got the 8 years as professor. Did he as UGC Chairman persuade some university to promote him to Professor with steps? If so would those on the selection committee including the VC of the relevant university have dared to say no to the UGC Chairman who determined grants to that university?

Did he nominate the UGC nominees to his own selection committees for his two promotions and two appointments as Professor at Rajarata and then back to Peradeniya? Indeed, was Circular 897 written by the UGC specifically for the Chairman’s promotion? Any explanation, whatever it may be, would have ugly connotations.

The UGC website also lists its Chairman’s degrees as “BA (Hons.), MA, Ph.D. (St. Andrews)”. The convention is that when multiple degrees are listed with only the name of one university at the end, then all the degrees listed are from the one named university. When then did he earn his BA and MA from St. Andrews?

I say he has no BA (Hons) from St. Andrews as claimed and I believe no MA either.

The UGC website also lists Commission Member Subramaniam Mohandas [sic., really Mohanadas] as “Professor in Chemistry, University of Jaffna.” His also was a classic political appointment as VC Jaffna in 2003 at the behest of Minister Douglas Devananda while an Associate Professor of Agricultural Chemistry there. Even that promotion to Associate Professor was dubious because, from my recollection of his CV which I read as a member of the UGC at one time, he hardly has any journal publications.

Unlike the Chairman, he as VC did not put himself through a promotion with conflicts of interest. When he retired from University of Jaffna, he lost all rights to his title of Associate Professor because the Emeritus Professorship is given, if at all it is, only to those retiring at the full rank of Professor.

How then did he acquire the rank of Professor, let alone of Professor of Chemistry, after he retired?
Was he rehired by the University of Jaffna to the Department of Chemistry for him to be listed as he is?
Under the Act, the UGC has no powers to confer degrees or professorships.

‘Dr.’ Mohanadas is good and beautiful. ‘Professor’ is a university title and is not necessarily higher than ‘Dr.’ when outside a university. But in our vanity we seem to want to strut around with every title we can add, legitimate or not.

If just two of the UGC listings I am personally familiar with are either fake or manipulated, how about the rest?

This is what happens when high appointments are made to reward political cronies and hangers on rather than on merit. A couple of people buying doctorates to strut around in society for a little status, might cheat a few.

But when former Vice Chancellors and UGC Members and the Chairman misuse the system to claim high titles for themselves, they destroy the very academic fabric of the nation, just as appointing the unqualified as VC and UGC Chairman for the sake of the ruling party began that process of decay – for such unqualified persons need to cook up fake qualifications to show themselves to be qualified to justify their undeserved high offices.

The President must take note!

Under threat of trumped up criminal charges for an article he wrote in The Sunday Leader on election malpractices by Minister Douglas Devananda, the author fled Sri Lanka where he and his wife had been terminated from their permanent academic positions and refused appointments even as Senior Lecturer. Both were quickly absorbed at full-professor’s rank at Michigan State University, a top-50 national research university in the US. courtesy: The Sunday Leader

Don’t fiddle with free education

Daily Mirror, 13/06/2012, 

Editorial

With the gradual and now extensive privatisation of the health sector, the cost of warded treatment in private hospitals is so high that it is beyond the reach of more than 85 per cent of our people. In addition to five-star hotels, we now have five-star hospitals where helpless unsuspecting patients are plundered and their families lose most of their savings.

We need to take a lesson from what has happened in the health sector and act fast before some vested interests backed by arrogant politicians privatise the equally–important sector of education to such an extent that it causes serious damage to the free education service which has been one of the precious blessings for Sri Lanka in a country plagued by rampant corruption and fraud, deception and hypocrisy.



The attack on free education began with the setting up of international schools. Indeed there were loads of faults and failures in public schools with hundreds of them lacking even basic facilities. The root cause of it was the inadequacy of the budgetary allocation for education. During the thirty–year war a huge allocation had to be made for defence, but even after the end of the war, the allocation for education has not been significantly increased while Education Minister Bandula Goonewardene often talks of cheese but gives chalk. Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake has virtually declared war on those who are opposing his plans to set up private universities and to give official status to the private medical college which was set up at Malabe in a subtle if not deceptive way. Minister Dissanayake who had his roots in the Communist Party seems to have turned full circle and often talks like an outright capitalist with a tone that is arrogant and unwilling to come to some middle path of accommodation. As a result, he has antagonised thousands of university students, academic and non-academic staff on issues ranging from privatisation to salary anomalies.

If Sri Lanka has a high literacy rate today with a high degree of intelligence, creativity, initiative and imaginative skills especially among the young people, free education is responsible for it.

Instead of trying to privatise education, the two ministers need to focus more attention on changing the aims, goals and attitudes in education. Passing examinations by fair means or foul and through the scourge of private tuition must not be the priority. Instead we need to create a spirit of inquiry in children, making them interested to find out why various things happen as they do. Then the children will see education as a blessing and not as a burden.

New breed of institutional leaders for internationalising Lankan universities

June 4, 2012, 7:15 pm

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

I am happy to see Professor Ranjith Senaratne, Vice Chairman of the UGC, taking an interest in the welfare of universities and coming up with sound ideas (29, 30, 31 May, 2012).

In our system of patronage appointments, the most unsuitable persons – embezzlers, womanizers, drunkards, political stooges and the down-right lazy – are put up for high appointments. Occasionally, however, a suitable person comes up. Professor Senaratne is one such person, a rare Sri Lankan professor who has really earned the title professor and wears it with distinction. He has been recognized through an honorary higher doctorate from University of Durham. I take pride in having been part of the UGC that rooted for his reappointment as VC in 2004. As Vice Chairman of the UGC, he is vested with immense powers to change the system as he wishes.

Senaratne advocates, rightly, changes to the way VCs are presently appointed under Circular 880, saying 1) The advertisement presently used by the universities calling for applications does not adequately describe the candidate and does not define the role and responsibilities of the VC and the attributes an applicant should possess; 2) The Search Committee to identify suitable candidates is improperly constituted under the chairmanship of the incumbent VC who might be a candidate; 3) The advertisement ought to be widely placed.

These problems with VC appointments were widely recognized by the UGC under Prof. Ranjith Mendis when I too was a member. A crisis was precipitated in 2003 when the Peradeniya VC sought renewal and its Council (which included a present member of the UGC) conspired to throw out a highly qualified foreign academic and a civil servant who had applied and substituted the names of two Council members after the closing date (See S. R. H. Hoole, "Peradeniya’s Shame," The Island, 29 Nov. 2003. I complained widely and, when no one listened, took it to The Ombudsman, Justice R .B. Ranaraja, who gave a scathing report and asked the UGC to change the rules. The result was UGC Circular 839 of 26 Jan. 2004. It provided for much of what Senaratne suggsts: 1) The advertisement shall be disseminated as widely as possible within and outside the University System and specify the qualifications desired of the VC. 2) The advertisement shall specify the desired qualification of any applicant (which included research accomplishments as a first); 3) That selection shall be by objective criteria agreed to before the advertisement and 4) The search committee appointed by several authorities shall include persons from outside the university system and 5) No related meeting should be chaired by a candidate.

The OU was in a mess at the time as the old scheme had attracted only 2 applications, outsiders not having applied as only internal candidates had a chance, leaving them without the 3 names to be forwarded to the President. When Circular 839 was applied, the only time it was, there were some 17 applicants! The university system was aghast. The Committee of Vice Chancellors and Directors consisting of many unqualified VCs appointed under patronage, panicked. They mounted such a vociferous protest that Prof. Mendis unilaterally cancelled 839. Senaratne was on the CVCD then and surely knows of 839’s provisions which he now advocates.

In measure of how unmindful of the law the system is, 839 upon promulgation had cancelled preceding Circulars 670 and 765 on the appointment of VCs. Even if the chairman had the power to nullify Circular 839 passed by the UGC, which did not give new life to the now dead Circulars 670 and 765, which were not specifically revived. The system thereafter operated until 08/2006 without any ordinance on the appointment of VCs, believing that 670 and 765 were in force! When I pointed this out, the episode was so embarrassing that no one wanted to touch VC appointments.

Mendis knew exactly what was wrong with VC appointments and persuaded us on the UGC to push hard for the appointment of Embuldeniya – neither an academic nor an insider – whose successes Senaratne has recounted. We could do it because Uva Wellassa was being just founded and the UGC had a big say on who would be the first VC.

But why did Embuldeniya decide to manage with so few non-academic staff members? Shortly after he became VC, the UGC, too, got a new Executive whose first circular was the obnoxious Circular 876: "[H]aving considered a request made by the Hon. Deputy Minister of Higher Education on the instructions given by the Minister of Education, [the UGC] decided that all external recruitments to the minor employee grades … be made from a list of candidates compiled by the Ministry of Education." (While the Minister cannot instruct the UGC, note how his instructions to his Deputy are stated as if he were instructing the UGC to cover up UGC cowardice and escape responsibility). Accordingly you and I as citizens cannot apply for these posts which are only for the minister’s stooges, hangers on and "tail-holders." Thus in Jaffna, one must go to suck up to the Minister of Traditional Industries & Small Enterprise Development who sends a list to the Minister of Higher Education. These recruits will not obey the orders of their superiors. Embuldeniya was better off without such stooges.

Good foreign scholars as VCs, like in Singapore, would be good indeed as Senaratne wants. They would be above influence peddling. But would they be left to run the university without interference as in Singapore? Would they be willing to appoint the minister’s stooges as under 896? Would the minister allow them to survive if they stood up to him? How would the Councils select them as specified by the Universities Act? Before we take that bold step of bringing in outsiders, these ordinances need to be revised.

As UGC Vice Chairman Prof. Senaratne can fix many of the problems plaguing our universities – the widespread corruption by some VCs as the UGC looks the other way, the appointment as VC of persons against whom there are stringent indictments from the AG, the fraudulent appointment of professors by counting conference papers as journal papers etc. Even at the UGC we have those appointed while Associate Professor to run the universities and then mysteriously are listed a Senior Professor without the required 8 years as professor and, in another case, after retirement promoted to professor in the UGC website.

I am not sure Professor Senaratne can surmount the forces of lethargy and privilege he faces, forces invested in the status quo and using obscurantist speeches of high principles while running an oligarchic university system. He is a product of that system and therefore obliged to the patronage that pervades it and I am sure he has favours to return as when he kept quiet on the CVCD and I, too, had to on numerous occasions while on the UGC. Overcoming this is his challenge. I wish him well.

*Under threat of criminal charges for an article on election malpractices, the author fled Sri Lanka, where he and his wife had been terminated from their permanent positions and refused appointments even as Senior Lecturers. Both were quickly absorbed at full-professor’s rank at Michigan State University, a top-50 national research university in the US.

Original Article on The Island

Internationalising SL universities and appointing vice chancellors

June 4, 2012, 7:35 pm 

By O. A. I. Ileperuma

Reading through the series of articles on the above matter by my friend Prof. Ranjith Senaratne (The Island May 30, 2012) was like reading through a fantasy novel. Nevertheless he should be congratulated on bringing in a burning issue which continuously frustrates the academic community in Sri Lanka on the appointment of their Vice Chancellor. Finding the right person to the position of Vice Chancellor of a University is important; not only in the interest of the university, but also in national interest because thousands of students and the general public view this leadership with high expectations as somebody who can truly contribute to their future.

Prof. Senaratne’s particular emphasis was on the role of the Vice Chancellor and how they are appointed in the top Universities of the World like Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. However, I would have liked him to talk about the intricacies we in Sri Lanka follow in appointing Vice Chancellors. Let me quote from his article, " Vice Chancellors are treated differently from all other Heads of Public Institutions as reflected for instance in the totally different procedures that apply to the appointment of Vice Chancellors as compared with other senior public administrators" This is absolutely true! However, he should have elaborated on these "totally different procedures". This is where the pathetic state of affairs with respect of the appointment of Vice Chancellors becomes apparent. Let me explain the current procedure adopted in the selection of a Vice Chancellor. The University advertises this post where in impressive academic credentials are called for the coveted post of Vice Chancellor. Aspiring applicants who are sure that they can get the necessary political support do not care for the high academic standards called for while the more serious applicants who think they have the required qualifications and experience also apply with lengthy dossiers of publications, vision statements etc. Unlike any other post such as a Lecturer or a Professor, the application for the Vice Chancellor only goes to the Council of the University where the majority is political appointees of the minister. The applicants are not ranked according to academic merit but by a secret vote! This is part of the "different procedure" adopted in the selection of the Vice Chancellor. The vote too depends on how much the candidate influences the Council members through the political authorities and not on the curriculum vitae submitted. Interestingly, canvassing may be a disqualification for many other jobs but not this particular one!

Influence peddling

The one who works well in advance to get this job on political merit, makes sure that he signs election lists at the right time, shows his face at election meetings or other social gatherings. Often they tap someone influential close to the highest political authorities to pass a word on his/her behalf. Once these links are established and if the appointing authority is also convinced about the candidature of this person, it is just a matter for the higher ups to inform the appointed members of the council to vote for their favourite. Many respectable senior academics do not even consider applying for this post because they do not want to go down on knees to politicians to get this position. Application to any other post like a Lecturer or a Professor involves facing an interview panel of eminent academics in the same area of specialisation and the evaluation of academic credentials such as research publications, books written and dissemination of knowledge. Can Prof. Senaratne elaborate more on whether such credentials are evaluated and if not what other criteria are considered in making Vice Chancellor appointments?

In Prof. Senaratne’s article, many examples such as Harvard and Cambridge are given where people from outside the University system have been appointed as Vice Chancellors. These Universities look for the best qualified persons with proven track records who can carry the Universities forward enabling them to survive in an increasingly competitive and challenging environment. This is the case even in our region. When the Vice Chancellor for the post of University of Madras, a highly prestigious university, which is one of the oldest in India fell vacant, Chief Minister Jayalalitha entrusted the task of finding a suitable person to three eminent scientists in India. One of these members personally told me that there was no influence by her or any other politicians in making this appointment and the best person was selected. Politicians and the members of this particular selection panel love their country and care for the well-being of this educational Institution founded in 1839, that they do not want it ruined by an under-qualified political henchman. Many Universities in India follow similar procedures but there have also been cases of abuse by certain corrupt Governors in appointing Vice Chancellors of smaller Universities. For universities in India, the mandatory requirements are that the applicant should be a Professor with over 10 years of experience and a proven track record of academic and administrative leadership. In contrast, Sri Lanka does not have any requirement except political affiliation and we have senior lecturers appointed as Vice Chancellors overlooking many senior academics.

Advertising Vacancies

Prof. Senaratne mentions advertisements to appoint Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors and Deans of Universities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam and "fishing in global waters" to select high calibre professionals. It is not impossible to imagine that in Sri Lanka, if such a scheme is adopted, our Universities will be filled by defeated political candidates and other political stooges.

We in Sri Lanka are still in the dark ages as regards the appointment of Vice Chancellors. The University academic community and academic bodies like the Senates have no say in appointing their leader and no one really knows on what basis the Vice Chancellor is selected from among the three names submitted to the President. Clearly we are 50 years backward compared to other universities even in this region. No wonder that none of our Universities are ranked in the first 1500 in the world ranking of universities.

Appointing Vice Chancellors on the basis of political affiliation generally results in him/her as more accountable to the government than to the university. This can lead to major conflicts between the academic staff and students on the one hand and also with the University administration on the other. Appointment on the basis of pure academic merit can at least ensure that the Vice Chancellor selected has some sort of credibility in the eyes of the academic staff and the students.

In the last of the series Prof. Senartane talks about the unsatisfactory procedures adopted in the advertisement for the post of Vice Chancellor and stress the need to look beyond the confines of the university in attracting best qualified people. This point is well taken. He also quite correctly argues that "Circular no. 880 of 15.08.2006 concerning the appointment of a Search Committee to identify suitable candidates is in this respect faulty and self-defeating". This committee consists only of academics from the same university to which a Vice Chancellor is appointed and does not have teeth to make any impact. For example, in the recent selection of three names for the post of Vice Chancellor at the University of Peradeniya, this committee made no recommendations. These concepts of head hunting are common in highly developed countries and it is the best procedure available. However, it is doubtful whether our politicians will allow this to happen. For them, universities need to be under their central control and even if the UGC is serious about such a procedure it will not happen in Sri Lanka for the obvious reasons mentioned above.

Unsatisfactory Process

What Prof. Senaratne has not mentioned is the procedure adopted after the nominations reach the UGC and then the President. Would he be candid about the unsatisfactory nature of the current process for appointing Vice Chancellors at the highest level? The whole exercise which Prof. Senaratne is trying to promote is useless unless those who are at the highest authority feels that Vice Chancellors should be appointed according to pure academic merit and experience. In any case, Prof. Senaratne should be thanked for bringing into light the shortcomings of the procedure and the need to appoint good mangers to head our higher educational Institutions.

Sri Lanka is not the only country where the Head of State appoints the Vice Chancellor. Considering the immense responsibilities attached and the importance of this post, it is always the Head of State or the Governor of a Province who appoints Vice Chancellors. It is my belief that this practice should continue in Sri Lanka but not the the way it is done. Many Asian Universities also follow similar procedures. However, their initial screening involving a powerful search committee involving those outside the university concerned recommends only the most suitable person to this post and certainly the kind of political manipulation as happening in Sri Lanka is by and large absent. Hong Kong University Council appoints the Vice Chancellor on the recommendation of the Senate and there is no interference from the Head of State. This explains why the University of Hong Kong is ranked number one in Asia and there are only a few universities in the Asian region in the top 100 Universities in the world. In developed countries such as Canada, a professional Human Resources firm is recruited to select the most qualified candidate and in consultation with the Board of Trustees recommends a single name to the Governor of the Province.

According to Prof. Senaratne, we spend Rs. 20 billion annually to maintain our Universities, and the public of this country has a right to demand much more from our universities such as new degree programmes, life-long education, to serve as knowledge hubs and contribute to economic prosperity. The appointment of the Vice Chancellor on a political basis greatly reduces the ability to harness the full potential of the University community to move forward.

Original Article in The Island

Quebec's student protesters give UK activists a lesson

www.guardian.co.uk, 1/06/2012,

• • 
    Peter Hallward
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 June 2012 12.23 BST

In the face of a systematic assault on education, the Classe group has hit on a strategy that has the power to succeed


Students protest against tuition fee increases on 31 May in Montreal, Quebec. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images
The extraordinary student mobilisation in Quebec has already sustained the longest and largest student strike in the history of North America, and it has already organised the single biggest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. It is now rapidly growing into one of the most powerful and inventive anti-austerity campaigns anywhere in the world.

Every situation is different, of course, and Quebec's students draw on a distinctive history of social and political struggle, one rooted in the 1960s quiet revolution. Support for the provincial government that opposes them, moreover, has been undermined in recent years by allegations of corruption and bribery. Nevertheless, those of us fighting against cuts and fees in other parts of the world have much to learn from the way the campaign has been organised. It's time that education activists in the UK, in particular, started to pay the Quebecois the highest compliment: when in doubt, imitate.

The first reason for the students' success lies in the clarity of both their immediate aim and its links to a broad range of closely associated aims. Students of all political persuasions support the current "minimal programme", to block the Liberal government's plan to increase tuition fees by 82% over several years. Most students and their families also oppose the many similar measures introduced by federal and provincial governments in Canada in recent years, which collectively represent an unprecedented neoliberal attack on social welfare (new user fees for healthcare, elimination of public sector services and jobs, factory closures, wanton exploitation of natural resources, an increase in the retirement age, restrictions on trade unions and so on).

A growing number of students now also support the fundamental principle of free universal education, long defended by the more militant student groups (loosely co-ordinated in the remarkable new coalition Classe), and back their calls for the unconditional abolition of tuition fees, to be phased out over several years and compensated by a modest and perfectly feasible bank tax, at a time of record bank profits. "This hardline stance," the Guardian's reporter observed, "has catapulted Classe from being a relatively unknown organisation with 40,000 members to a sprawling phenomenon that now numbers 100,000 and claims to represent 70% of striking students." Growing numbers, too, can see how such a demand might help to compensate for the most obvious socioeconomic development in Canada over the last 30 years: the dramatic growth in income inequality, reinforced by a whole series of measures that have profited the rich and very rich at the expense of everyone else.

In Quebec, student resistance to these measures hasn't simply generated a contingent "chain of equivalences" across otherwise disparate demands: it has helped to create a practical, militant community of interest in the face of systematic neoliberal assault. "It's more than a student strike," a Classe spokesman said in April. "We want it to become a struggle of the people." At first scornfully dismissed in the corporate media, this general effort to make the student movement into a social movement has borne fruit in recent weeks, and it would be hard to describe the general tone of reports from the nightly protest marches that are now taking over much of Montreal in terms other than collective euphoria.

Nothing similar has yet happened in the UK, of course, even though the British variant of the same neoliberal assault – elimination of the EMA, immediate trebling of fees, systematic marketisation of provision – has been far more brutal. But the main reasons for this lie less in some uniquely francophone propensity to defend a particular social heritage than in the three basic elements of any successful popular campaign: strategy, organisation and empowerment.

As many students knew well before they launched their anti-fees campaign last summer, the best way to win this kind of fight is to implement a strategy that no amount of state coercion can overcome – a general, inclusive and "unlimited" boycott of classes. One-day actions and symbolic protest marches may help build momentum, but only "an open-ended general strike gives students maximum leverage to make their demands heard", the Classe's newspaper Ultimatum explains. So far, it has been 108 days and counting, and "on ne lâche pas" (we're not backing down) has become a familiar slogan across the province. So long as enough students are prepared to sustain it, their strike puts them in an almost invincible bargaining position.

Ensuring such preparation is the key to Classe as an organisation. It has provided new ways for students previously represented by more cautious and conventional student associations to align themselves with the more militant Assé, with its tradition of direct action and participatory democracy. Activists spent months preparing the ground for the strike, talking to students one at a time, organising department by department and then faculty by faculty, starting with the more receptive programmes and radiating slowly out to the more sceptical.

At every pertinent level they have created general assemblies, which have invested themselves with the power to deliberate and then make, quickly and collectively, important decisions. Actions are decided by a public show of hands, rather than by an atomising expression of private opinion. The more powerful and effective these assemblies have become, the more active and enthusiastic the level of participation. Delegates from the assemblies then participate in wider congresses and, in the absence of any formal leadership or bureaucracy, the "general will" that has emerged from these congresses is so clear that Classe is now the main organising force in the campaign and able to put firm pressure on the other more compromise-prone student unions.

Week after week, assemblies have decided to continue the strike. In most places, this has also meant a decision to keep taking the steps necessary to ensure its successful continuation, by preventing the minority of dissenting students from breaking it. Drawing on his experience at McGill University, strike veteran Jamie Burnett has some useful advice for the many student activists now considering how best to extend the campaign to other parts of Canada: don't indulge in "soft pickets" that allow classes to take place in spite of a strike mandate, and that thus allow staff to isolate and fail striking students. "Enforcing strikes is difficult to do, at least at first," he says, "but it's a lot less difficult than failing a semester. And people eventually come around, building a culture of solidarity and confrontational politics in the process."

The main result of this process so far has been one of far-reaching collective empowerment. Resolved from the beginning to win over rather than follow the more sceptical sectors of the media and "public opinion", the students have made themselves more powerful than their opponents. "[We] have learned collectively," Classe spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said last week, "that if we mobilise and try to block something, it's possible to do it." From rallies and class boycotts, in April the strike expanded to include more confrontational demonstrations and disruptive nightly marches through the centre of town. Soon afterwards, solidarity protests by groups like Mères en colère et solidaires started up in working-class districts of Montreal.

In a desperate effort to regain the initiative by representing the conflict as a criminal rather than political issue, the panicked provincial government rushed through its draconian Bill 78 to restrict the marches, discourage strike enforcement and consolidate its credentials (in advance of imminent elections) as a law-and-order administration. In the resulting escalation, however, it's the government that has been forced to blink. On 23 May, the day after an historic 300,000 people marched through Montreal in support of the students, police kettled and then arrested more than 700 people. But the mobilisation has become too strong to contain, and after near-universal condemnation of the new law it is already unenforceable. Since 22 May, pro-student demonstrations have multiplied in ways and numbers the police can't control, and drawing on Latin-American (and older charivari) traditions, pot-clanging marches have mushroomed throughout the province of Quebec. On Thursday night tense negotiations with the government again broke off without resolution, and business and tourist sectors are already alarmed by the prospect of a new wave of street protests continuing into Montreal's popular summer festival season.

There is now a very real chance that similar mobilisations may spread. Recent polls suggest that most students across Canada would support a strike against tuition increases, and momentum for more forceful action may be building in Ottawa and across Ontario; in Quebec itself they also show that an initially hesitant public is beginning to swing behind the student demands and against government repression. On 30 May, there were scores of solidarity rallies all over Canada and the world. In London around 150 casserolistas clanged their way from Canada House to the Canadian embassy at Grosvenor Square.

If enough of us are willing to learn a few things from our friends in places like Quebec and Chile, then in the coming years such numbers may change beyond all recognition. After much hesitation the NUS recently resolved that education should be "free at all and any level", and activists are gearing up for a massive TUC demonstration on 20 October. After a couple of memorable springs, it's time to prepare for a momentous autumn.

ජුලි 4 දා සිට අඛණ්‌ඩ වැඩ වර්ජනයක්‌ - විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරු තීරණය කරයි

www.divaina.com, 30/05/2012

නිලන්ත මදුරාවල

ඉල්ලීම් කිහිපයක්‌ මුල්කර ගනිමින් ජූලි මස 4 වැනිදා සිට අඛණ්‌ඩ වැඩ වර්ජනයක්‌ ආරම්භ කිරීමට විශ්වවිද්‍යාලීය ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය ඊයේ (29 වැනිදා) සවස තීරණය කළේය.

දළ ජාතික නිෂ්පාදනයෙන් අධ්‍යාපනයට වෙන් කරන මුදල සියයට හය දක්‌වා වැඩිකිරීම, ස්‌වාධීන තීන්දු තීරණ ගෙන ක්‍රියාත්මක වීම සඳහා විශ්වවිද්‍යාල පද්ධතිය නිර්දේශපාලනීකරණය කිරීම, කලින් පොරොන්දු වූ ආකාරයට 2008 වසරේදී යෝජිත වැටුප් වර්ධකයන් ලබාදීම හා ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ දරුවන් පාසල්වලට ඇතුළත් කර ගැනීම සඳහා පහසුකම් සැලසීම ඇතුළු ඉල්ලීම් කිහිපයක්‌ සම්බන්ධයෙන් ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතාට සහ උසස්‌ අධ්‍යාපන ඇමැති එස්‌. බී. දිසානායක මහතාට ලිපියක්‌ යෑවූ නමුත් ඒ පිළිබඳ කිසිදු ප්‍රතිචාරයක්‌ නොලද හෙයින් මේ තීරණය ගත් බව ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනයේ සභාපති ආචාර්ය නිර්මාල් රංජිත් දේවසිරි මහතා "දිවයින" ට පැවැසීය.

සම්මේලනය මෙම තීරණය ගෙන ඇත්තේ කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ ඊයේ සවස පැවැති එහි විධායක සභාවේදීය.

අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශය සමග කරන සියලු කටයුතුවලින් ඉවත් වීමට විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරු තීරණය කරති

www.divaina.com, 30/05/2012

නිලන්ත මදුරාවල

උසස්‌ පෙළ ප්‍රශ්න පත්‍ර සැකසීමද ඇතුළුව අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශය සමග කරන සියලු කටයුතුවලින් වහාම ඉවත් වීමට විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයීය ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය ඊයේ (29 වැනිදා) සවස තීරණය කළේය.

අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ඇතිවූ සිද්ධියකින් පසු ආචාර්යවරුන් තමන්ට මරණීය තර්ජන එල්ල කළ බව සඳහන් කරමින් හා එම ආචාර්යවරුන් පිළිබඳව පරීක්‍ෂණයක්‌ පවත්වන ලෙස අමාත්‍යාංශ ලේකම් එච්. එම්. ගුණසේකර මහතා උසස්‌ අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයට කළ ලිත දැනුම් දීමට එරෙහිව සම්මේලනය මෙම තීරණය ගෙන ඇත.

මරණීය තර්ජන එල්ල කිරීමක්‌ කිසි සේත්ම සිදුනොවී ඇති අවස්‌ථාවක එවැනි තර්ජනයක්‌ එල්ල වූ බව සඳහන් කරමින් ඊට අදාළව පරීක්‍ෂණයක්‌ කරන ලෙස ලිතව දැනුම් දීම බරපතළ තත්ත්වයක්‌ යෑයි එම සමිති සම්මේලනයේ සභාපති ආචාර්ය නිර්මාල් රංජිත් දේවසිරි මහතා "දිවයින"ට පැවසීය.

උසස්‌ පෙළ ප්‍රශ්න පත්‍ර සැකසීම ඇතුළු විභාගයට අදාළ කටයුතු රැසක්‌ ඉටු කරනු ලබන්නේ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන් විසින් වන අතර පෙළ පොත්වල අන්තර්ගත කරුණු සම්බන්ධයෙන් ද ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ මැදිහත් වීම අමාත්‍යාංශයට අවශ්‍ය වේ.

මෙම කටයුතුවලින් ඉවත් වීමට සම්මේලනය තීරණය කිරීමට තවත් හේතුවක්‌ වූයේ අධ්‍යාපන ලේකම්වරයාගේ නොසලකා හැරීමේ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය බවත් දේවසිරි මහතා සඳහන් කළේය.

සිය දරුවන් ජනප්‍රිය පාසල්වලට ඇතුළත් කර නොගැනීම පිළිබඳ සාකච්ඡා කිරීම සඳහා ශ්‍රී ජයවර්ධනපුර විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයීය ආචාර්යවරුන් පස්‌ දෙනෙක්‌ අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයට ගොස්‌ තිබූ අතර එහිදී ඇතිවූ වචන හුවමාරුවකින් පසුව ආචාර්යවරුන් තමන්ට මරණීය තර්ජන එල්ල කළ බවට ලේකම්වරයා තලංගම පොලිසියට කළ පැමිණිල්ලට අදාළව පරීක්‍ෂණයක්‌ ද පවත්වා ඇත. ලේකම්වරයා උසස්‌ අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයට සිද්ධිය දන්වා පරීක්‍ෂණයක්‌ පවත්වන ලෙස ඉල්ලා ඇත්තේ ඉන් පසුවය.

ලාභය විනා සේවය නොවන මාලබේ පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලය පෞද්ගලික මගී ප්‍රවාහන සේවාව වගෙයි - ආචාර්ය නිර්මාල් රංජිත් දේවසිරි

www.divaina.com, 30/05/2012

නිලන්ත මදුරාවල

මාලබේ පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලය පෞද්ගලික මගී ප්‍රවාහන සේවාව හා සමාන යෑයිද එකම අරමුණ ලාභය විනා සේවය නොවන බවද විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයීය වෘත්තීය සමිති සම්මේලනයේ සභාපති ආචාර්ය නිර්මාල් රංජිත් දේවසිරි මහතා පැවසීය.

නිදහස්‌ අධ්‍යාපනය මෙන්ම නිදහස්‌ සෞඛ්‍යයද රැක ගැනීමේ තීරණාත්මක අවස්‌ථාවක්‌ පැමිණ ඇතැයිද බල්ලො මරා හෝ මුදල් ඉපයීමේ පිළිවෙතක සිට ආණ්‌ඩුව කටයුතු කරන බවද ඒ මහතා සඳහන් කළේය.

සභාපතිවරයා මේ බව ප්‍රකාශ කළේ පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලවලට එරෙහි සංවිධාන සහ විද්වත් එකමුතුව මෙහෙයවීමෙන් මරදාන සමාජයීය සාමයික කේන්ද්‍රයේ ඊයේ (29 වැනිදා) පැවැති මාධ්‍ය හමුවේදීය.

මාලබේ පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලයට එරෙහිව කරුණු දැක්‌වීම සඳහා පැවැති මෙම මාධ්‍ය හමුවේදී අදහස්‌ පළකළ දේවසිරි මහතා කුමන ආකාරයෙන් හෝ මුදල් ඉපයීමේ ප්‍රවණතාව සෑම ක්‍ෂේත්‍රයකම පවතින බවත් ආණ්‌ඩුවට අවශ්‍ය වන්නේද සෑම ක්‍ෂේත්‍රයක්‌ම ඒ තත්ත්වයට පත්කිරීම බවත් සඳහන් කළේය.

ලංකාවේ පෞද්ගලික පාසල් ක්‍රියාත්මක වුවද රජයේ පාසල් හා එම පාසල් අතර විශාල වෙනසක්‌ නොපවතින බවද එහෙත් පෞද්ගලික උපාධි කඩයක තත්ත්වය හා අරමුණ ඊට හාත්පසින්ම වෙනස්‌ බවද කී සභාපතිවරයා අධ්‍යාපනය, සෞඛ්‍යය වැනි ක්‍ෂේත්‍ර කඩවල අලෙවි කිරීමට ඉඩ දියයුතු නැතැයිද පැවසීය.

පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලවලට එරෙහි සංවිධාන හා විද්වත් එකමුතුවේ කැඳවුම්කරු වෛද්‍ය අසංග වික්‍රමසිංහ මහතා මෙහිදි සඳහන් කළේ මාලබේ පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලයට එරෙහිව ජනතා පෙත්සමක්‌a අත්සන් කිරීමේ කටයුතු මේ වන විට ආරම්භ කර ඇති බවය.

මෙම පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලයේ නීති විරෝධී තත්ත්වය පිළිබඳව සඳහන් කරමින් ජනාධිපතිවරයාට සහ උසස්‌ අධ්‍යාපන ඇමැතිවරයාට මේ වන විට ලිපි යවා ඇතැයිද සියලුම පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ටත් එම ලිපිය යවන බවද ඒ මහතා කීවේය.

පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාලවලට එරෙහි වෛද්‍යවරුන්ගේ සංවිධාන කැඳවුම්කරු වෛද්‍ය ඉඳුනිල් විඡේනායක, ලංකා ගුරු සේවා සංගමයේ ප්‍රධාන ලේකම් මහින්ද ජයසිංහ යන මහත්වරුද අදහස්‌ දැක්‌වූහ.

විශ්වවිද්‍යාල තුළ අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශකිරීමේ අයිතිය

Kathika, 19/05/2012

- නිර්මාල් රංජිත් දේවසිරි

පසුගිය දිනෙක විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය විසින් සංවිධානය කරතිබූ මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවකට පැමිණි මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල භූමිය තුළට ඇතුල් වීමට ඉඩනොදීම නිසා ඇතිවූ තත්වය පිළිබඳව ඇතැම් මාධ්‍යවල වාර්තා වී තිබුණි. මෙය අලූත් තත්වයක් නොවේ. පසුගිය වසරේද කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලය තුළ මෙවැනිම තත්වයක් ඇතිවිය. මෙම අවස්ථා දෙකේදීම මේ සිදුවීමට අදාලව විශ්වවිද්‍යාල පරිපාලනය සමඟ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ පාර්ශවයෙන් සෘජුව ගනුදෙනු කළ පුද්ගලයා ලෙස මේ සිදුවීමෙන් මතුවල වැදගත් ගැටලූ කීපයක් සම්බන්ධව සාකච්ඡාකිරීම උචිත යයි සිතමි.

බැලූ බැල්මටම පැහැදිළි වන්නාවූ දෙයක් නම් මෙම සිදුවීම අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශ කිරීමේ නිදහස සම්බන්ධව බරලතල ගැටලූවක් මතුකරන බවයි. එය සාමාන්‍ය තතත්වයට වඩා බරපතල තත්වයක් වන්නේ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල සම්බන්ධව ගත්කල අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශ කිරීමේ නිදහස කොහොමත්ම මූලික තැනක් ගන්නා බැවිනි. අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශ කිරීමේ නිදහස ක‍්‍රියාත්මක වශයෙන් පවතින්නේ නොමැතිව විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයක් පැවතීමට පවා නොහැකිය. ඒ අර්ථයෙන් ගත්කල කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ බලධාරීන්ගේ මෙම කි‍්‍රයාව කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ පැවැත්මේ පදනමටම එල්ල කරන ලද මරු පහරකි.

මෙම සිදුවීමට අදාලව මා කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ බලධාරීන් සමඟ පැවැත්වූ සාකච්ඡා වලදී මතුවූ කරුණු කීපයක් පාඨක අවධානයට යොමු කරවීම මෙහිදී අතිශයින්ම වැදගත්ය. බලධාරීන් මෙම මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාව පැවැත්වීම අවහිර කරන ලද්දේ මීට වසර කීපයකට පෙර විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ප‍්‍රතිපාදන කොමිෂන් සභාව විසින් නිකුත් කරන ලද චක‍්‍රලේඛයක් උපයෝගී කරගනිමිනි. එම චක‍්‍රලේඛයට අනුව විශ්වවිද්‍යාල පරිශ‍්‍රය තුලට මාධ්‍ය කැඳවීම සඳහා විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ බලධාරීන්ගේ පූර්ව අනුමැතිය ලබාගත යුතුය. ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම මෙම චක‍්‍රලේඛය මගින් අපේක්ෂා කරනු ලැබුවේ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ශිෂ්‍ය දේශපාලන කටයුතු සීමා කිරීම බව පෙනේ. මක්නිසාද යත් එවකට විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරු අතර බලධාරීන්ගේ කෝපයට හේතුවන ක‍්‍රියාකාරකම් එතරම් දක්නට නොලැබුනු බැවිනි. නමුත් පසුගිය වසර දෙකක පමණ කාලය තුළ මෙම තත්වය වෙනස් විය. විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරු සටන්කාමී වෘත්තීය සමිති ක‍්‍රියාකාරකම්වලට අවතීර්ණ වීමත් සමඟ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ කටයුතුද බලධාරීන්ට හිසරදයක් බවට පත්වීම දක්නට ලැබේ.

කෙසේ වෙතත් එනිනෙක විශ්වවිද්‍යාල සම්බන්ධයෙන් ගත් කල ද ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ වෘත්තීය සමිති කටයුතුවලට බාධා කිරීමේ පැත්තෙන් ගත්කල වෙනස්කම් දක්නට ලැබේ. විශේෂයෙන්ම මෑතකාලීනව ආරම්භ කරනුලැබ ඇති වැඩි වශයෙන් ආධුනික කතිකාචාර්යවරු සේවය කරන ස්ථානවල තත්වය බෙහෙවින් කණගාටුදායක තත්වයක පවතී. මේවායේ උප කුලපතිවරු බොහෝ දුරට ක‍්‍රියා කරන්නේ ප‍්‍රාදේශීය රජවරු මෙනි. ඌව විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ තත්වය මීට කදිම නිදර්ශනයකි. එහි බලධාරීන් වෘත්තීය සංගමයක් පිහිටුවීම සඳහා හෝ එහි ආචාර්යවරුන්ට ඉඩ නොදෙයි. විශ්වවිද්‍යාලවල උපකුලපතිවරු පත්කිරීම ඉතාම තදින් ආණ්ඩුවේ බලධාරීන්ගේ හස්තයට පත් වී ඇති බැවින් ආණ්ඩුවේ බලධාරීන් සතුටුවේයැයි සිතන ආකාරයට ක‍්‍රියාකිරීම බොහෝ උප කුලපතිවරුන්ගේ ක‍්‍රමය බවට පත්වීතිබේ.

නැවතත් කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ සිදුවීමට එන්නේ නම් අදාල මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවට පැමිණිමට මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට ඉඩනොදුන්නේ ඇයිද යන්නට කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ බලධාරීන් ඉදිරිපත්කල කරුණක් සලකා බැලීම මෙහිදී වැදගත්ය. ඔවුන් ප‍්‍රකාශකලේ මේ මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවේ දී සාකච්ඡාකරන දේ ඔවුන් වෙත දැනුම් දී නොමැති බවයි. මා ඔවුන්ගෙන් විමසා සිටියේ සාකච්ඡාකරන දේ එසේ දැනුම් දිය යුත්තේ මන් ද යන්නයි.

මෙහිදී මගේ තර්කය වන්නේ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල බලධාරීන් එවැනි ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් ඇසීම ම ඒ අයට ප‍්‍රජාතත්ත‍්‍රවාදය පිළිබඳව හෝ අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශ කිරීමේ අයිතිය පිළිබඳව හෝ අවබෝධයක් නොමැති බව තහවුරු කරන්නක් බවයි. අඩුම කරමින් විශ්වවිද්‍යාලක් තුළදී මේ ප‍්‍රශ්නය විමසීම ම විසුළු සහගත වේ. එය හරියට මෙම ලිපිය ලිවීමට පෙර මා විශ්වවිද්‍යාල බලධාරීන්ගෙන් ඒ සඳහා අනුමැතිය ගත යුතුය වැනි තර්කයකි.

එක් අවස්ථාවක දී දේශපාලන විද්‍යාව පිළිබඳ මහාචාර්යවරයක් ද වන විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ප‍්‍රතිපාදන කොමිෂන් සභාවේ සභාපතිතුමා ප‍්‍රකාශකලේ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල වනාහී ‘මුදානොගත් ප‍්‍රදේශ’ වර්ගයක් බවයි. එකල ‘මුදානොගත් ප‍්‍රදේශ’ යන පදය භාවිත කරනු ලැබුවේ එල්ටීටීඊ සංවිධානයේ පාලනය යටතේ පැවැති ප‍්‍රදේශ හඳුන්වා දීම සඳහාය. ඒ මහතාගේ ම රූපකය පාවිච්චි කරන්නේනම් කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡා එහි බලධාරීන් විසින් කඩාකප්පල් කිරීම ඒ අනුව අපට හැඳින්විය හැක්කේ කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලය මුදාගැනීම සඳහා වූ මෙහෙයුමේ කොටසක් වශයෙනි.

මෙම තත්වයෙන් පෙන්නුම් කරන්නේ කුමක්ද? විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ‘‘මුදාගැනීම සඳහා වූ’’ බලධාරීන්ගේ මෙහෙයුමට විරුද්ධව විශ්වවිද්‍යාල නැවත වතාවක් විශ්වවිද්‍යාල බවට පත්කිරීම සඳහා වූ ප‍්‍රති-මෙහෙයුමක් අවශ්‍යවී තිබෙන බව නොවේ ද?

කෙසේ වෙතත් මෙය අතිශයින් දුෂ්කර කටයුත්තක් වන්නේ බොහෝ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල බලධාරීන්ට ප‍්‍රජාතන්ත‍්‍රවාදය, අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශකිරීමේ අයිතිය, බුද්ධිමය නිදහස වැනි මූලධර්ම ගැන පුලූල් අවබොධයක් නොමැති බැවිනි. ඒ අය බොහෝවිට ආයතන සංග‍්‍රහයේ වගන්ති තුළ සැඟවී තම මර්ධනකාරී ක‍්‍රියා සාධාරණීකරණය කරති. පොදුවේ රාජ්‍ය ආයතන වලට බලපාන ආයතන සංග‍්‍රහය විශ්වවිද්‍යාල පරිපාලනය සඳහා භාවිත කළහැකි ද යන්න බෙහෙවින් මතභේදකාරී බව මෙහිදී කිවයුතුය. මේ වනවිට ආයතන සංග‍්‍රහයේ ඇති ඇතැම් බෙහෙවින්ම මතභේදකාරී වගන්ති උපයොගී කරගෙන විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ රැස්වීම් පැවැත්වීමේ අයිතිය පවා අහෝසි කිරීමට කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ බලධාරීන් කටයුතු කරමින් සිටී.

ආයතන සංග‍්‍රහය විශ්වවිද්‍යාල කෙරෙහි ඇති අදාලත්වය පරීක්ෂාවට භාජනය කෙරෙන සිදුවීමක් මෑතක සිදුවිය. මෑතකදී රජයේ සේවකයින් රජයේ නොවන ආයතන විසින් සංවිධානය කරනු ලබන සම්මන්ත‍්‍රණ වැඩමුළු ආදියට සහභාගී වීම සඳහා අදාල අමාත්‍යාංශයෙන් පූර්ව අනුමැතිය අවශ්‍ය බවට වූ කැබිනට් තීරණයක් විශ්වවිද්‍යාල වෙත දන්වන ලෙස උසස් අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශය විසින් විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ප‍්‍රතිපාදන කොමිසම වෙත දන්වන ලදි. විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය මීට විරෝධය දැක්වූ පසු උසස් අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ලේකම් වරයා පැවසූවේ එය විශ්වවිද්‍යාල වෙත නිකුත් කරනු ලැබුවේ අත්වැරදීමකින් බවයි. මෙයින් කියැවෙන්නේ කුමක් ද? මෙයින් පැහැදිළි වන්නේ සාමාන්‍ය රජයේ සේවකයකුට බලපාන නීති රෙගුලාසි වලින් විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන් පාලනය කරනු ලැබිය නොහැකි බවයි.

මෙයින් මා කියන්නට උත්සාහ කරන්නේ කුමක් ද? අදහස් ප‍්‍රකාශකිරීමේ අයිතිය, බුද්ධිමය නිදහස වැනි මූලධර්ම විශ්වවිද්‍යාල සම්බන්ධයෙන් ගත්කල හුදු සැරසිලි නොවන බවයි. ඒවා එහි පැවැත්මටම අවශ්‍යවන දේය. පේරාදෙණිය විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ ආදර්ශ පාඨය ලෙස පවතින ‘සාමාන්‍ය තත්වයට වඩා වැඩි නිදහස’ (More freedom than usual) යන්නෙන් අහස් වන්නේ ද එයයි.

ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම මෙම තත්වය ඕනෑම නූතන ප‍්‍රජාතන්ත‍්‍රවාදී සමාජයක් සම්බන්ධව සත්‍යයක් වන බව ද කිව යුතුය. ඊට හේතුව වන්නේ නූතන ප‍්‍රජාතන්ත‍්‍රවාදී සමාජ පදනම් වන්නේ ජනතා පරමාධිපත්‍යය යන මූලධර්මය මත වන බැවිනි. එවැනි සමාජයක රාජ්‍ය යන්ත‍්‍රය පවතින්නේ පුරවැසියාගේ කැමැත්ත මතය. පුරවැසියාට තම අදහස් නිදහසේ ප‍්‍රකාශ කිරීමට අවස්ථාව නොමැතිනම් එම සමාජය තුළ ප‍්‍රජාතන්ත‍්‍රවාදයක් නැත. මෙම නිදහස සාමාන්‍ය තත්වයටත් වඩා තිබිය යුතු විශ්වවිද්‍යාලවල මෙම මූලධර්ම ක‍්‍රියාවට පෙරලීමක් දක්නට නොලැබේ නම්, ඒසේ ම ඒවායේ බලධාරීන්ට එම මූලධර්ම පිළිබඳව අවබොධයක් නොමැති නම් ඒ අයට වහ වහා ඒ පිළිබඳව අවබෝධයක් ලබාදීමට කටයුතු කල යුතුය.

nrdewasiri@gmail.com

The story of the National Schools

A page from an unwritten book on Politicization of Education

The Island, May 17, 2012, 6:47 pm 

by Eric J. de Silva

(This article first appeared in ‘The Island’ of Oct, 20, 2009. It is reproduced in view of its relevance to the current debate on an Education Ministry directive preventing National Schools admitting children from their counterparts after the GCE O/L examination. – Ed)

The Island of 13th October 2009 turned the spotlight on the shortcomings of a National School, namely Aluthgama Maha Vidyalaya in the Kalutara district. This is not the first time the media has drawn attention to such scandalous shortcomings in what are called National Schools. In fact, I have heard or read about much worse cases than this.

The term National School or ‘Jathika Pasala’, as far as I am aware, came into usage in the mid eighties, and the criteria laid down by the Education Ministry for selection of National Schools in 1985 reads as follows:

(A) The total school enrolment in the school should be 2000 or more.

(B) The school should have a well-established collegiate section, with a sufficient number of students in the science, arts and commerce streams.

(C) The A/L results of the school should indicate a reasonable academic standard.

(D) The buildings, furniture, equipment and other facilities should match the student numbers of the school.

(E) The school should be in a position to obtain adequate financial support from the school development society, past pupils’ association and other sources in the community.

(F) The school should be generally accepted by the community as one of the best in the region.

Not more than 18 schools were identified to be called National Schools at the time, and these were very well-known schools in the country, including a few in provincial capitals.

With the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1987, the responsibility for the supervision and management of all schools, other than the National Schools described above, passed on to the Provincial Councils. The responsibility for supervising and managing National Schools remained with the central Ministry of Education.

The criteria laid down in 1985 seems to have been strictly followed during the early years, as could be seen from the fact that the number of National Schools increased by only five over a period of five years, bringing the total to 23 by 1989. In the meantime, the criteria laid down in 1985, was revised in 1990 to read as follows:

(A) The school should have 2000 or more students.

(B) The school should have 200 or more students in the GCE A/L science classes.

(C) Of the number of students appearing for the GCE A/L Examination during the previous three years, one third should have qualified for admission to universities each year.

(D) There should be adequate buildings, desks and chairs for all students.

(E) There should be adequate facilities for teaching technology related subjects.

(F) Laboratory facilities should be adequate to meet the requirements of all GCE O/L and A/L students.

(G) The annual income from facilities and services’ fees should exceed Rs.15,000.

(H) Residents should consider the school to be one of the leading schools in the locality.

(I) The school should have an effective School Development Society.

(J) The school should have an active Past Pupils’ Association.

Politicians step in, rationality departs?

It did not take much time for the term ‘National School’ to become a status symbol within the school system, and the prospect of being administered directly from the centre, located at ‘Isurupaya’ in Battaramulla, became a much sought after privilege! This is where politicians stepped in to get more and more schools in their electorates upgraded as National Schools, to gain mileage for themselves, even if it meant a mere change in the nameboard of the school, and the Ministry of Education happily granted its approval in contravention of its own criteria!

Thus, we find the number of National Schools going up to 37 by 1992 and then skyrocketing to 165 by 1994. With a General Election fast approaching, it was not too bad an idea for politicians to get a couple of schools upgraded in their electoral districts, if it could help to net in some votes. The Badulla district (a district for which I have a special fondness, as I had the good fortune to cut my teeth as CCS cadet there in 1960), registered the largest increase from just one in 1992 to 27 in 1994, for reasons that would not be too difficult to find! It was Sir John (Kotelawala) who said if you have the spoon in your hand, do serve yourself well!

When politicians take over micro-level management decisions, rationality departs, with the result that the number of National Schools increased in geometric progression (to use a Malthusian expression), during the period 1994 to 2000, and reached 317 by the latter year. The declaration of a school as a National School required only a nod of approval from the Minister of Education, as the officials were there merely to carry out his directives and not to question why. Tragically, politicisation had by now almost totally devoured the education system.

This is what the National Education Commission had to say, commenting on the situation that existed in 2003: "………the new category of a limited number of National Schools created in the early 1980s, using strict criteria to identify schools with very good facilities and offering quality education, has become meaningless and distorted, with the indiscriminate addition of schools that do not conform to these criteria. Currently, 40 of the 323 National Schools are 1C schools (without Science education at GCE Advanced Level) and one National School is a Type 2 school with classes to GCE Ordinary Level only." (Proposals for a National Policy Framework on General Education in Sri Lanka, December 2003).

Hardly had the ink dried on this and a few other home truths, that the above report said about the way the education system functioned, those who said so were sent home by the then President, and the commission itself reconstituted!

What price politicization?

(The writer welcomes comment and the expression of any dissenting views, in particular)

University Employees Union protest

DailyMirror, TUESDAY, 15 MAY 2012 16:31



The pictures show the members of the University Employees Union (UEU) repressing the university non academic staff protesting in front of the University Grant Commission (UGC) today urging the government to fulfill their several demands. Pix by Nisal Baduge.

Results of the 2011 AL exams were incorrect - SC

Date:2012-05-12 02:01:00
Stanley Samarasinghe

The Supreme Court yesterday declared that results of the 2011 AL examination were incorrect based on the two sets of question papers submitted to the Court.

Supreme Court Justice Nimal Gamini Amaratunga said the inquiry relating to the Fundamental Right Case filed by 16 students and Ceylon Teachers Union challenging the validity of 2011 AL results, has revealed that the results were incorrect.

The Court had examined the two sets of question papers submitted to the Court by the petitioners.

Examination Commissioner W.M.N.J. Pushpakumara, representatives from the University Grants Commission, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena, Professor R.O. Thatil and the Attorney General were the respondents.

Counsel for the petitioners J.C. Weliamuna submitted to the Court that the incorrect results were caused by amalgamating marks from two separate papers to calculate the ‘Z’s score.

The counsel for two students seeking to support the case submitted that the two sets of examination papers given to the students stated that 33 out of 60 questions in each paper were identical.

However, the counsel said according to the new syllabus a student can obtain more marks answering a lesser number of questions in a shorter time whereas with the older syllabus it was the opposite of it.

At this time Justice Amaratunga observed that even one mark could make a vast difference in the results and consequently in the life of a student.

Counsel Weliamuna together with Counsel Sanjeeva Ranaweera instructed by Counsel Sanjeewa Kaluarachchi appeared for the petitioners.

President’s Counsel Faizer Mustapha with Counsel Kushan Alwis appeared for the University Grants Commission and State Counsel Therium Pillai appeared for the Minister and the Attorney General.

Original Article

FUTA - ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාවේදි මාධ්‍යට වැට

Newsfirst.lk, 10/05/2012

විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය අද කොළඹදී ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාවක් පැවැත්විය.

ඒ සුපුරුදු ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාවක් ලෙස නම් නොවේ.

විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය අද ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාව පැවැත්වීමට සූදානම් කර තිබුණේ කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ අභයන්තර ස්ථානයකදීය.

ඒ හේතුවෙන් විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනයේ සාමාජිකයින්ට ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාව පැවැත්වීමට සිදුවුණේ එළිමහනේදීය.

Tag: විශ්වවිද්‍යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සමිති සම්මේලනය

The Morning after the FUTA Strike:The politics of a broader agenda in 2012

Sunday Island, April 29, 2012, 7:41 pm 

By Andi Schubert

The Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) re-launched its trade union action on Thursday the 26th of April with a token strike and rally. In the context of the renewed attention in tertiary education and the threat of further trade union action by FUTA, this article seeks to draw out some questions that FUTA will have to deal with if it is to avoid the debacle of its last trade union action.

FUTA Strike 2011

The FUTA strike of 2011 was a high watermark in the recent history of State universities in Sri Lanka. On May 9th 2011, FUTA members resigned from their administrative posts in the universities as part of its trade union action to demand higher wages for university academics. However in the build-up to May 9 and in its immediate aftermath it became clear that the issue of higher wages was not the only issue that was a concern for FUTA. The final clarion call for the allocation of 6% of GDP on education (it is currently less than 2%) marked a key moment for the trade union as it highlighted a shift away from the narrow demands of better wages, to a larger concern for the future of higher education in Sri Lanka. It is perhaps no coincidence that these developments also arose in the backdrop of government plans to introduce private medical colleges (as seen by the furore created by the SAITM campus at Malabe). The broader concern for the higher education sector in Sri Lanka gave way to "an academic spring" and led many to believe that "a sleeping giant" had been awoken.i

However, the sudden suspension of trade union action in July on the agreement made by the FUTA leadership surprised many, especially due to the terms of the final agreement that was reached between FUTA and the government. The three agreements that were made at the time were the removal of conditions on components of the salaries of academics (particularly the research allowance), a committee comprising representatives from FUTA and the government would be formed to resolve salary anomalies, and finally the withdrawal of a circular that made it mandatory for academics to give three months notice when resigning from voluntary administrative positions.

Noticeably many of the broader issues raised during the trade union action were not part of the agreement reached between FUTA and the government and the agreement reflects a concern that is almost exclusively focused on the wages of permanent lecturers within the university system. Due to this it would be easy to take away an impression that FUTA was not really concerned about the larger issues facing the higher education system in Sri Lanka and was finally only interested in securing better salaries for its members (a laudable but somewhat narrow goal given the issues raised during its Trade Union action).

FUTA Strike 2012: A Broader Agenda?

In a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa regarding the resumption of its trade union action, FUTA has outlined a number of serious and pertinent concerns about tertiary education in the country including the lack of funding for State Universities, politicization and political interference in the university system and the suppression of student activism. Once again it would appear that FUTA is calling for larger reforms to the tertiary education system and has not limited itself to discussions around salary anomalies alone.

The fact that FUTA has opted for this strategy from the outset is also a reflection of the evolution that took place during its last (failed) trade union action in 2011. This development is indeed laudable and should be appreciated. It is hoped that FUTA continues to maintain this broader commitment to the issues facing (and crippling) the higher education system in Sri Lanka and succeeds in defining the parameters of the debate in a broader context. However, the shift that this entails raises a number of interesting questions for FUTA.

FUTA’s Role in a Broader Agenda

One of the biggest questions that this shift raises is as to who the stakeholders in this process should be. Or to put it more succinctly who should speak for these stakeholders and what are the politics involved in doing so? When approached from this angle it becomes clear that FUTA is only one of many stakeholders whose voices should be heard viz. the current debates on the future of the higher education system in Sri Lanka. Just as much as lecturers play an important role in the universities, it is pertinent to recall that student unions, non-academic staff unions, and other groups that have not been organized on these lines including students and visiting lecturers, should all be important stakeholders in discussions on the future of the university. If FUTA is to succeed in broadening its agenda, then it must be willing to open itself up to the issues faced by other groups within the university system as well. In this context what is the role of FUTA as a spokesperson or actor calling for reform of the university system? A broader agenda for trade union action must involve the realization then that FUTA can and must play a wider role that is more of a facilitator than leader in these discussions. This is in spite of the fact that FUTA represents the academics within the system and therefore sit atop the hierarchy in the university.

It also requires FUTA to seriously think of what it really wants this trade union action to achieve. As an umbrella organization FUTA will have to grapple with concerns that its own voice will be lost and the interests of academics will be diluted in the process of achieving this broader agenda. It must therefore either decide to tackle these issues head on and convince its members of the need for this broader agenda from the outset. If it changes its mind like it did during the last trade union action, FUTA will find itself again struggling to be relevant and "awake."

FUTA, Power Politics and Alliances

It might also help FUTA to be reflexive on their own notions of power and hierarchy within the system and ask itself questions for example at which points would FUTA be reluctant to share a stage with other unions (especially student unions) and what the power politics of this reluctance entails? FUTA may find itself grappling with the hierarchical nature of the university system. The conceptions of the exalted stature of the teacher within the university may well be threatened particularly by seeing student unions as being equal partners in a struggle rather than as students in a classroom. This may also require a serious reflection on the terms on which these alliances are made and who should decide on them. For example, in response to some of the questions posed in public discussions, some academics have strongly argued for a commitment from student unions to stop ragging as a prerequisite for an alliance. However, one wonders what commitments FUTA is willing to make on its part in exchange for this commitment from student unions. (This is not to say that ragging is good but to point out the politics through which alliances are built)

One way in which FUTA may be able to create a broader alliance is by putting in place mechanisms that could encourage this process. One example of this is the exploration of the possibility of FUTA adopting a resolution to support trade union action of other unions by not working on days when other strikes have been called, especially when relevant to the broader agenda outlined by FUTA. Another example of this could be a commitment to bettering pedagogy and moving away from archaic curriculums where possible in order to provide students with a higher quality education. While these may seem rather radical steps, they are suggested as examples of some of the thinking that FUTA would have to consider in order to pursue its commitment to a broader agenda.

The lack of media attention for the FUTA token strike on the 26th (also overshadowed by the student protest against the Malabe Medical College) suggests that FUTA will have to work hard to return to the levels of debate, attention and discussion that it generated during its last trade union action. While FUTA’s commitment to a broader agenda is laudable, it is important that the process and politics of this agenda be discussed and dealt with from the start. The failure to do so will see FUTA repeat its performance from last year and struggle even further to be a voice that can speak truth to power.