{"id":63231,"date":"2017-02-08T15:48:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T22:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63231"},"modified":"2017-02-08T15:48:08","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T22:48:08","slug":"saitm-predicament-and-redress-of-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/08\/saitm-predicament-and-redress-of-education\/","title":{"rendered":"SAITM Predicament and Redress of Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chandana Jayalath<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

With the court\u2019s decision assenting what the SAITM demands, I see a novel educational model that can kick start. I strongly believe it is high time we re-modeled the educational structures as a whole. This is possible, provided a holistic view is honored by all corners of the society, politicians, professionals and the public. Conflicts are not always bad.<\/p>\n

It is a known fact that only 3 per cent of the Advanced Level student population gains an opportunity to enter a Sri Lankan university. Sadly, we have been far behind times warranting speedy answers. It needs rational and radical changes as long as free education policies are upheld and secured. Unless, we resolve this educational gap, we are to see more and more youngsters protesting in roads demanding justice.<\/p>\n

However, there shall never be sufficient funding for this noble cause. The context is such that heavy national debt persists, thanks to our own people who have been voting for nonsense for the last 68 years. Free education is not sufficiently competitive to promote educational advances if we all agree that competitive education is the biggest impetus for development.<\/p>\n

One can argue, 97 per cent of students who lost university entrance not only have to self-fund their tertiary education but also pay taxes to fund the 3 per cent. Some argue that this 3 per cent, who are now securely placed in state universities block opportunities for the others. They interpret it as an inverted model of capitalism. In contrast, however, I believe it a question of standard than barricade. Students rally round and raise concerns, and if not listened, they come down and shout for justice.<\/p>\n

Basically, the problem with the SAITM is its lack of transparency in the student selection and the delivery of clinical training. This is what we have heard so far on the side of its opponents, in addition to its own inception issues, of course. At the outset, it is important that SAITM simply follows UGC procedure as for any other university study program in the country. Therefore, the current nationally accepted selection process must prevail in student selection to SAITM, unconditionally. Next, the UGC Quality Assurance Council if existent, and the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) should consider at least provisional approval with the relevant improvements without relaxing relevant specifications as any other medical faculty operates.Advanced level students can select their choices upon their merit and include the SAITM also if they so wish. However, it essentially warrants a public private modality in the overall conduct, I believe.<\/p>\n

It is also imperative that SAITM preserves its automaticity while keeping with rapidly evolving medical knowledge. It should also preserve the right to select a small proportion of exceptional students, including foreign students in keeping with UGC policy. This is to ensure that these institutions are not \u2018locked\u2019 onto outdated national models and improve the quality of their programs to maintain student demand and become financially self-sufficient. It is also a model that can attract foreign students, which will indeed be a major influx of foreign money. This will resolve the biggest issue of funds to keep the existing university system running, at least a portion in the long run and will give a much needed boost to education in our country and also stop the brain drain of educators, on the other hand.<\/p>\n

Let us now look at the role of the Sri Lanka Medical Council. Existing since 1924, despite the name it had, the SLMC is a statutory body established for the purpose of protecting health care seekers by ensuring the maintenance of academic and professional standards, discipline and ethical practice by health professionals who are registered with it.\u00a0 As presently constituted the Council has a public liability; that is to ensure publicly reliable doctors and other medical allied professionals are serving in the medical sector. Public reliance is what makes the SLMC liable. However, there is no known recorded court cases so far filed against SLMC for bad quality delivery of medical services.<\/p>\n

Further, the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) is a campus established in 2011 in Colombo to provide tertiary education for self-funding students. It acquired degree awarding status for the MBBS medical undergraduate degree in 2013. Since the course was fee levying, it was affordable only to a fraction of our community. Though this created a sense of a \u2018class\u2019 divide, I would say, it is inevitable. I also see that the protests were similar to those that were staged against the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) two decades ago, the first privately funded medical school in Sri Lanka started in 1980. I was one of those who were behind the struggle by writing leaflets on behalf of then the medical students against the setup of NCMC. As a result of prolonged struggle, the NCMC was abolished and absorbed into the state sector, and renamed Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya.<\/p>\n

Essentially, Government approved councils such as SLMC serve as the ultimate gateways for medical profession in each country. Chartered associations are those given a mandate by government to represent a particular profession. A charter signifies that an individual has the knowledge and the experience to practice as a full-fledged professional. The linkage between professional associations and the emerging public private mix of university education institutions in Sri Lanka has proceeded more or less smoothly. In all these fields, the professional associations have facilitated the transition from academic to the professional domain or have provided paths parallel to and independent from universities.<\/p>\n

Clinical practice is more crucial in medicine than in any other profession and SLMC is correct in its focus on the lack of facilities for clinical training at SAITM. However, as the Council responsible for the overall quality of medical practice in Sri Lanka, SLMC should also consider whether a monopoly by the State sector will best serve the profession. While acting as guardian of quality they have a responsibility to create more competition and room for innovation in the professional training of doctors. Hope, SLMC will not necessarily act as gatekeepers, instead, act with forethought in regard to both quality and access.<\/p>\n

As exactly seen, if the medical colleges affiliated to the present universities are unable to provide the facilities for the students, let the government formulate a system to open private medical, engineering and other universities and save the deflated foreign currency reserve in Sri Lanka. We know that in western countries, a MBBS program costs around US $ 225,000 to US $ 300,000. As a matter of urgency, the government should look into the mushrooming of foreign technical institutions and other education providers as the country should clear this hurdle of providing good education. Indeed, success in medicine requires application and hard work, while studying and in practice. However, it brings great rewards in terms of job satisfaction, involving as it does a combination of science and human interactions, and numerous career opportunities.<\/p>\n

Despite arguments for and against, I am of the firm view that, courts should not have involved in issuing orders to SLMC, considering its autonomy granted in law. It is so traditional in Sri Lanka that courts operate one size fit all manner. Matter is seriously technical by nature. Courts should have given more prominence to public policy than the law itself and referred to court annexed mediation and oversee the conduct at arm’s length. A wrong precedence may mean to have serious repercussions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chandana Jayalath With the court\u2019s decision assenting what the SAITM demands, I see a novel educational model that can kick start. I strongly believe it is high time we re-modeled the educational structures as a whole. This is possible, provided a holistic view is honored by all corners of the society, politicians, professionals and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}