Politicisation of education sector exposed in P’ment

Tuesday, 18 November 2014 01:27 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Ashwin Hemmathagama Our Lobby Correspondent Outdated curriculum and the politicisation of the higher education system heated the House when the Ministry of Higher Education was up for Committee Stage Debate of the Budget 2015.

Opposition lawmakers charged the Government for failing to meet the students demand and to create employable graduates who could help meet the development targets. Moving the debate, UNP MP Akila Viraj Kariyawasam demanded that the Government list action taken to increase the quality of curriculum and the efforts the University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken in the past to enhance the quality of higher education. “The higher educational institutions make experts. The UGC and the Ministry of Higher Education have a responsibility to direct the students. However, course content needs to change to suit today’s world, where the job market has to be the key focus. Unfortunately, neither the Ministry nor the UGC are able to meet this demand,” he said.

Lack of critical thinking, innovation exposes Govt. underspending on education: Eran

UNP MP says militarised discipline and rigid educational system kills creativity

The main opposition United National Party yesterday slammed the Government’s lack of focus on education and training, saying militarised discipline and a rigid educational system was stamping out critical thinking and innovation in the island.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday, UNP National List Legislator Eran Wickramaratne pointed to Sri Lanka’s steep decline on the Global Competitiveness Index from 65 to 73 in 2014, and said the country’s ranking had dropped 10 places in the Higher Education and Training Section. “Most educational institutions teach people what to think rather than how to think. I was fortunate to receive a university education which taught me how to think. It is the right of every student to have the right environment to foster critical thinking. We must give them the mental skills that revolve around critical thinking,” Wickramaratne told Parliament yesterday. Blaming the Government for the existing system, the UNP MP added that the regime’s psychology of treating every individual as a sick person i.e. there is something to be fixed in the individual, works against fostering a spirit of criticism, analysis, innovations and entrepreneurship. “A militarised discipline will kill creativity. You cannot attempt to do in university what our parents and elders failed to do at home,” he charged. “From the control of behaviour of university students using Rakshana Arakshaka to military discipline fosters suppression of the free spirit,” Wickramaratne asserted. Critical thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship would not be achieved that way, he said.

According to MP Kariyawasam, the academia has issues in terms of research and experiments where global indexes are not listing any of the Sri Lankan lecturers. “The Science Index has no mention about our lecturers who provide research papers. Although the Government is unable to direct the lectures in that direction, it is capable of politicising the system. In today’s newspaper there is a full-page advertisement congratulating the President. This is an advertisement published by UGC spending public money just to wish the President on his birthday. Regardless of the students’ complaints of being unable to eat the poor quality foods provided in the canteen, UGC publishes advertisements spending public money. UGC is nothing more than another centre used to lead the elections campaign. We condemn your program to politicise the higher education system,” charged Kariyawasam. In response, Deputy Minister of Higher Education Nandimithra Ekanayake listed the Government’s commitment. “In 2008 we allocated Rs. 20.1 billion and in 2014 we have increased the allocation to Rs. 38 billion. We have increased student registration at the Open University to 97,147 this year. Students protest that the Ministry is useless and is not attending to the infrastructure development. We reject such false allegations. Infrastructure development is a key area we have given prominence during 2014. The leadership training program is not a military training. It broadens their scope and builds strong bonds. These programs have reduced ragging in universities and we expect ragging to end by 2016 in all universities,” said Deputy Minister Ekanayake. However, Opposition lawmaker Sunil Handunnetti brought in the politicisation of the higher education under Minister S.B. Dissanayake, who is known for calling students by the names of animals. “2020 is set to bring Sri Lanka to be the best education centre in the Asian region, but what we see from the Minister’s behaviour is that Sri Lanka will instead be listed as a place where animals are getting educated. It is the Minister who uses animals’ names on the students in addition to using the universities for political purposes. He sees the Vice Chancellors as UPFA supporters. You point to the JVP for having political representation within the universities. You criticise our political representation as a wrongful act. But it is you who politicised the university system. If you want to save the universities from the JVP, why bring your politics into it? Gone are the days the lecturers kept their private political affiliations and ideologies at home; it is you who put them in trouble and forced them to take sides,” charged MP Handunnetti. However, commending the Government on several fronts for certain improvements, MP Handunnetti said: “We agree that you have increased the allocations compared to past years. But if you take the distribution at large, the Kotelawala Defence University is getting the lion’s share. What they receive is more than what five other universities together receive. What is the speciality at KDU? You are looking at increasing the intake from 24,000 taken to 17 universities to 100,000 by 2020. For this you will have to have a plan. Tell us your plan, unless it is just a statement. We don’t see any plan with you. You have increased the fees by 150% at the Open University. This increase has brought down registrations by 50%. You are not allowing establishment of student associations. Why is this? You are violating their human rights. What is it you are afraid of? However, you have increased Mahapola, which is good.”