{"id":63310,"date":"2017-02-11T19:41:37","date_gmt":"2017-02-12T02:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63310"},"modified":"2017-02-11T19:41:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-12T02:41:37","slug":"enough-is-enough-stop-torturing-the-university-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/11\/enough-is-enough-stop-torturing-the-university-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough is enough: \u00a0Stop torturing the university students!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By \u00a0Rohana R. Wasala<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

Thousands of university students (medical students and their counterparts from other faculties) have been demonstrating over many months against the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine at Malabe; they have been cursed by the public for the disruptions and inconveniences caused by their conduct; tear-gassed, water-cannoned, and baton-charged by the police, with nothing gained. The SAITM students have had their more sedate demonstrations; but their mental torture must be greater. They have followed very exacting courses of study at considerable financial cost to their parents, worked hard, and passed difficult examinations, and suddenly they are faced with an uncertain future for no fault of theirs. Government doctors are also up in arms against the private medical college. I don\u2019t for a moment suspect the bona fides of all these groups. I have the highest regard for them all, though I may respectfully disagree with the points of view that the anti-SAITM activists adopt, while sharing their passion for the causes they claim to espouse. But I unequivocally condemn the politicians who have created an issue where there shouldn\u2019t be one, and who are causing mayhem to promote their own selfish interests. The SAITM problem has been so unnecessarily politicized.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the news that former president Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa has jumped on the anti-SAITM bandwagon was something that few responsible Sri Lankans expected to hear. But he is not likely to support any call for the abolition of the SAITM or the outlawing of all forms of private education. Which of the two following contradictory alternatives could be more important for him, do you think? (1) \u00a0putting a spanner in the works of a well functioning institution built at the cost of many millions of rupees of the country\u2019s own money (not foreign funds from questionable sources with ulterior motives concerning our country) on the pretext that it marks the beginning of the end of free education in Sri Lanka or (2) forging a powerful united opposition to help all patriots in the parliament at present irrespective of party loyalties to defeat attempts, if any, to introduce potentially harmful legislation that could threaten the future of the whole country (as so many constitutional authorities argue), among other pernicious impositions such as ECTA? My own answer should be clear to my intelligent readers; but they are not invited or expected to buy my opinions offhand.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Actually, Mr Rajapaksa can be expected to extend his unequivocal support for the continuation and enhancement of the private medical college because the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine at Malabe was inaugurated in 2008 under the auspices of Mr Rajapaksa himself as president. It was done as something compatible with the rapid development program that he initiated even before the end of the separatist war. The institute was granted degree awarding status by the University Grants Commission in 2013 during the second term of his presidency. Mr Rajapaksa\u2019s minister of Higher Education at the time was the present Samurdi minister Mr S.B. Dissanayake who, Dr Neville Fernando, the founder chairman of the SAITM said recently, was a \u2018tower of strength\u2019 to him (to Dr Fernando).<\/p>\n

Mr Rajapaksa\u2019s objections to the institution are apparently due to his acceptance of the argument that the Sri Lanka Medical Council has refused to register its MBBS graduates as they are products of a medical college that the Council has concluded, after investigations, to be lacking in the normal facilities required for turning out physicians with the necessary knowledge and clinical training that will enable them to treat our local patients guaranteeing their safety. Now, it should be obvious to anyone with some little common sense that this is not an insurmountable problem. It can be easily fixed, perhaps with the assistance of the state. The low quality argument against the SAITM medical faculty is not strong enough for the government to order its immediate closing down. Mr Rajapaksa cannot be thought to be unaware of this simple truth. It is also good to remember that, as usual with him, he won\u2019t assume a position that he cannot later defend.<\/p>\n

At a news conference on February 7, asked about Mr Rajapaksa\u2019s latest stance regarding the SAITM, Dr Fernando remembered his earlier supportive attitude. The former president had even asked Dr Fernando to grant scholarships to some needy students who had got good results at the AL, but who failed to find places in the state universities. Dr Fernando had given scholarships to thirty such students incurring a loss of revenue to the college of 5,000,000 rupees. When he said during this interview: Some politicians are opportunists\u201d, I don\u2019t think he meant it to be a negative reflection on Mr Rajapaksa. (https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/07\/some-politicians-are-opportunists-dr-neville\/<\/a>) Politics is about politicking, after all. What is important is a sense of humanity, of humaneness, which MR doesn\u2019t lack unlike many of his rivals.<\/p>\n

The threat to free education argument, in the opinion of most, is not tenable. In Sri Lanka today, fee levying education alongside free education is already normal. Private medical education should not be considered a threat to free education. On the contrary, it will get private capital to share the cost of education with the state, and also save foreign exchange by preventing parents from sending their children abroad for medical education, and earn foreign exchange for the country by attracting foreign students. Many of these parents are not necessarily of the moneyed class either. The state universities will be able to take in more students to their medical faculties, when some successful AL students (whose parents can afford it) opt to study in a private medical college. There is a false belief among our people that only those who get selected to study medicine in a state university are qualified enough or brainy enough to do so. The truth is that unnecessarily stringent selection criteria have to be imposed in order to restrict intake because of the limitedness of resources in our university system (due to Sri Lanka\u2019s general poverty). On the basis of the district quota system (which is a useful strategy introduced to help studious students from disadvantaged rural districts throughout the country), students who score less than the highest marks levels are admitted, thereby denying an equivalent number of students from urban areas who have performed better at the ALs an opportunity to gain admission to a state university free of charge. The latter are also a part of the country\u2019s youth who are of inestimable worth to us.<\/p>\n

The SAITM issue is no ordinary issue; nor is Mr Rajapaksa an ordinary politician. Dr Neville Fernando is also of comparable status. He is of a rare type in this country: he is a genuine technocrat<\/em> in the field of medical education. Besides, he is a patriot and a philanthropist. He is exerting himself in his sunset years not to add to the wealth that he already has, nor to seek political power, nor to seek personal indulgence, but to serve this country by helping educate the young of our motherland. All three (SAITM, its founder, and MR) are, in my opinion, sources of hope for millions, though some may think otherwise. (Incidentally, as a journalist, I am not pursuing personal agenda. I don\u2019t know any of the persons mentioned in this article including MR personally. I entirely depend on the media for information about them. My advocacy of MR\u2019s leadership is not because I want to tout him as an example of the perfect ruler, but because I believe, like many, that there is no other politician with the proven abilities and commitment that he has demonstrated. For better or for worse, SAITM is now a fait accompli; and, on the other hand, Mr Rajapaksa is the only political leader of national standing that we have who is still most acceptable to all the communities alike, whatever his detractors say. The country is being confronted probably with one of its worst crises since 1948. We cannot do without his leadership at this critical juncture. Honestly, there is still no one among our current leaders to take his place.<\/p>\n

There cannot be any contradiction between the way he will deal with the important SAITM issue and the way he will deal with the infinitely more important national emergency of having to save the country from NGO urged constitutional changes (as can be inferred from media reports, e.g. The Island<\/em>\/February 11, 2017). The problem with the SAITM is that it has been deliberately politicized by vested interests. Though the SAITM question has just been resolved through the courts, the political demons that have taken possession of it are yet to be exorcised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By \u00a0Rohana R. Wasala Thousands of university students (medical students and their counterparts from other faculties) have been demonstrating over many months against the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine at Malabe; they have been cursed by the public for the disruptions and inconveniences caused by their conduct; tear-gassed, water-cannoned, and baton-charged by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63310","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=63310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}