Understanding the UOM and NDT divide

Friday, 1 February 2013 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The violent stand-off between engineering students at the Moratuwa University and National Diploma in Technology (NDT) is well-documented, but it is doubtful that the reasons behind the repeated clashes would be solved by merely geographically removing one from the other, as has been proposed by the Government.

Following yet another spate of attacks, it would seem that the authorities have finally had enough. The proposal to remove the NDT students to a separate facility was announced on Wednesday and, so far at least, it has been met with silence that equates approval.

In the latest episode, NDT students claimed that they were provoked to retaliate due to previous attacks made by the university students. Even though clear evidence of this has not emerged, the problem has festered since the early 1990s and deserves scrutiny.

Verite Research, a media think tank, in its weekly News Analysis report observes that the clash has its cause in the conflicting interests between those who get more practitioner-oriented diplomas in technology, and those who get degrees with a more theoretical foundation in engineering sciences.

Verite points out that while the former believe that they are equally qualified as engineering students and therefore deserve degrees, the latter believe that upgrading NDT to the degree level would decrease the status of their own qualification. The conflict began in 1993 when the first batch of NDT students refused to accept the certificates offered to them by the university.

The organisation goes onto emphasise the point that without addressing the deep structural dimensions of the issue, the Minister of Higher Education seems to have used this clash as an opportunity to blame the newly-emerged Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), with which the Inter University Student Federation (IUSF) has informal political affiliations. However, the clash between engineering and NDT students is more about conflicts over limited resources, job opportunities and social recognition and it has less to do with political ideologies manipulated by party politics, insists Verite. While rejecting the Minister’s claim, the FSP has argued that the Government is trying to conceal the real cause of this problem: namely, the mismatch between the higher education opportunities and employment patterns in the country.

Despite being a nation almost obsessively focused on development, discourse on such crucial aspects as educational planning is not concentrated upon. In many ways the root of the whole conflict lies in policymakers not addressing the mismatch of employment opportunities and educational qualifications – a point that is exacerbated by sporadic establishment of training institutes that do not take into account the demands of the job market or the capabilities of students and resources available to them.

To understand the Moratuwa University and NDT divide, one has to look at it in the backdrop of greater problems that have been crippling Sri Lanka’s education sector for many decades. Without providing solutions to the larger issues, it is likely that this problem will merely be moved to another level – one which the Government hopes it will not have to deal with.