Malabe Private Medical College Issue
Posted on September 10th, 2011
Aloysius Hettiarachchi, Brunei
Malabe Medical college has become a vexed issue to the government, the students and their parents of this institution. Actually this matter should have been settled long time ago for the benefit of the country. But no government was willing to handle it as the leaders were afraid of strikes etc., by the JVP inspired GMOA. I am happy that this government has decided to take the bull by the horn. If other countries like Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India can allow such institutions why canƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t we in Sri Lanka benefit from them. It is only the HE, Mahinda RajapakseƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s government that could win the war against LTTE and I know he is the one who can face these GMOAƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s selfish doctors. Two years before the war ended I wrote to him that his name will be written in gold in our history books for his action against the terrorist (for which he sent me a reply) and I know that this is another task. There will be lot of difficult days ahead for the government as it appears that at least one of the ministers are also siding with them(GMOA).ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
I, myself, have spent lot of hard earned money to educate my children abroad and one of them happened to be in medicine, in a so called developed country. I would have spent all that money in Sri Lanka if there were avenues available at home. One of my relationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s daughter was just one mark short of getting selected to a government medical college. She decided to go to Bangladesh and do medicine. Now, she has earned her medical degree andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ passed the act 16 easily. Why should we send our children to another third world country which may not have even the facilities that Malabe has.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ I know of a Malabe studentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s father who works very hard overseas to provide for his sons education. He could have sent him to any other country to do medicine as his son had the necessary qualifications. He preferred to send him to Sri Lanka.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The government cannot afford to take in all those who qualify to enter as its resources are limited. Those who manage to enter the government medical colleges should not think that they are the only qualified students to do medicine and the qualifications they get are the best in the world. In fact our standards are very low in some fields now, I do not know about medicine. I am a civil engineer who passed out from Peradeniya in late sixties. I am appalled by the standard of some engineers coming out from these institutions now. At our time the Sri Lankan degrees were on par with those of Imperial college, UK. Recently, I happened to recruit some Sri Lankan engineers to work where I am, and I was embarrassed on several occasions due to their poor technical and communication skills.
The establishment of private universities is for the good of the country. They will be instrumental in maintaining high standards that can compete with those in other developed countries. This will not happen overnight, but gradually. Our own government universities are unable to raise standards primarily due to JVP inspired mindset of students who are eternally on strike and lack of commitment from academic staff (perhaps due to low wages). I know the government cannot solve these problems easily. The worldƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s economic power is currently shifting to Asia and we must gear ourselves to take full advantage of this situation by producing graduates of the highest quality, who can represent Sri Lanka anywhere in the world. Let the private universities including Malabe be a part of this drive.
Aloysius Hettiarachchi, Brunei
September 11th, 2011 at 4:44 am
Every parent like to see their children study in the best of best places. Parents willing to spend any amount of money to help their children to achieve their goals and dreams. Our country is goin forward at a faster rate thanks to his excellency Mahinda Rajapksa and his Government for giving this opoortunity after beating hell out from L.T.T.E barbarians. J.V.P. thugs and murderers are no exception of L.T.T.E.They both killed so many innocent civillians and destroyed public properties for many years and still they have not stop their murderers acts and sabotages in our Motherland.
President must act tough on them because they are P.I.A. to the country and to the people of SRI LANKA. They have the support of only one percent of the country not anymore so useless listning to them or afraid of them. They are bunch of rowdies and cowards who shouts for others. They were well paid from their foreign masters to sabotage our forward march and our President is too linient for these rascals. They should be put behind bars for disturbing the peace and helping foreign forces by telling lies and lies who are aganst our Motherland.
Let anyone oppose this foreign universities or acadamics majority of the people in my country deserves and likes to have the best of best for their children. Government must be tough on these issues.Should not allow anyone to dictate us. This is our Sinhala nation for the people who were born to this blessed island and not for any stooge or stooges anywhere in the world.
September 11th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
This issue is no doubt a big headache to the Government as well as the whole country. The trouble with Sri Lanka in a continuing process is that the “authorities” in charge do not have a “vision”. If there were policy dicisions and well established governing laws and regulations in place that these institutions have to comply with at the very initial stages, these unwanted clashes and disruptions would not have erupted. We never learn even from past mistakes. The country had a private medical college in Ragama and what happened to it. There were so many from within and outside the country to pay the fees and study and qualify for a medical degree. This venture too had to face immense problems by way of protests, clashes, disruptions etc. all of which led to the closing down of that institution. The students attached to this campus were left in the lurch and all that the parents spent went down the drains.
Did we learn the lesson? NO. The authorities just keep mum when these institutions start operating and the anxious parents and children just patronize it with the hope of future promulgamation of policcy desions on recognition of its qualifications. Even at the very last stage of granting recognition to this institution, the two Ministers,i.e. Minister of Higher education and Minister of Health had divergent opinions, resulting in finding flaws and issuing directions to re-publish an amended gazette notification. That is how the GMOA decided to postpone the strike. So that is clear evidence of some problems with the whoe issue. Why such issues were not addressed before announcing the policy decisions?
Acting tough is not the answer to solving a problem. Why cry against the opposition to an issue? If the issues are addressed and sorted out correctly at the beginning, any protest could be calssified as “disruptive” and act accordingly. This is what happened to the Private Sector Pension Scheme too.
The only explanation for this mess is, either those in authorities, including the political leadership relating to these subjects are incompetent OR knowningly and willingly sabotage to bring discredit to the Government. It is so unfortunate to see both these factors are quite visible in day to day affairs of the Government. It is high time that the President takes a stock of the situation and initiate corrective steps at this very moment without further delay, as otherwise all the good work done will be forgotten by the people soon.
September 12th, 2011 at 5:08 am
We too also agree that adequate Laws have not been put place in Sri Lanka in keeping with our Development needs. This has happened not only in the fields of Education, but also in other important areas such as sale of land to foreigners (though some Laws have been put in place a few weeks ago), the Environment, naming of political parties, to name a few areas. No wonder each and every foreigner thinks they can walk rough shod all over this Country and its People ! Over to you all, Lawmakers of the Land – do your job !