{"id":91567,"date":"2019-07-20T00:39:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T06:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91567"},"modified":"2019-07-19T15:42:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T22:42:19","slug":"sajith-premadasas-degree-qualifications-vs-other-politicians-and-national-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/20\/sajith-premadasas-degree-qualifications-vs-other-politicians-and-national-list\/","title":{"rendered":"SAJITH PREMADASA\u2019S DEGREE QUALIFICATIONS vs OTHER POLITICIANS AND NATIONAL LIST"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr M D P DISSANAYAKE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Like\nin many other countries, there are no mandatory academic or professional\nqualifications required by a person to be elected as President, Prime Minister\nor Cabinet of Ministers of Sri Lanka.  Late Mr D S Senanayake\u2019s\nqualifications were never questioned when he became our First Prime Minister\nunder independent Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike\nin 1948, now Sri Lanka has produced thousands of highly educated  and\nworld renowned academics and professionals.  Yet, our political system\ncontinuing musical chairs with the same old seasoned politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nare rumours that the former Auditor General Mr Gamini Wijesinghe might come\nforward as a Presidential caididate from JVP, as he continuously had close\nlinks with Sunil Handunhetti during Bond Scam investigations.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sajith\nPremadasa\u2019s academic credentials are now being questioned in public. \nSajith entered Mill Hill School in London. In addition to normal\n admission requirements of GCE OL, the Mill Hill School has a direct entry\nfor those over 17 years of age, without GCE OL passes.  Sajith did enter\nthe Mill Hill when he was just turned 17.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\nthere he entered the prestigious LSE (London School of Economics) when his\nfather was the President of Sri Lanka.  Sajith only completed the first\nyear studies, he fell ill and could not complete  full course of\nstudies.  However, the LSE      awarded Aegrotat\nCertificate, as a Bachelor of Science in 1991. Aegrotat is not Pass Degree\ncertificate. It is an Unclassfied\u201d degree, not recognised as equivalent to a\nPass Degree. Towards end of first year, Sajith fell ill with Measles and\nparalysis of his legs. Aegrotat Degree is a pathway of an exemption from the\nrest of the course of studies, due to exceptional circumstances of the student,\nsuch as serious illness.  Aegorat is therefore is a Degree, but not\nclassified as a Degree, a Clayton\u2019s Degree.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis common politicians twist and turn their academic and\/or professional\nqualifications.  A former Finance Minister of the current government claim\nFCMA signifying Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Management Accounting\n(CIMA), UK.  However, his studies were in Certified Management\nAccountants, Sri Lanka, not CIMA UK.  However, CMA Sri Lanka is a well\nstructured examination, but  recognised by CIMA UK to register as a\nstudent, with few exemptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly,\na former Power and Energy Minister who claim membership of Chartered Institute\nof Electrical Engineers, Sri Lanka is also under a cloud.  He did complete\nthe degree from Katubedda ( now prestigious University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka),\nbut did not complete the post qualification experience segment to qualify for\nthe B.Sc.Engineering.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nNational List of Sri Lanka was originally introduced to fill the vaccum, to be\nable to recruit properly qualified men and women  to become Ministers of\nthe Cabinet etc. But today Sri Lanka has not been able to make productive use\nof National List, as originally intended.  It is now a gateway for defeated\ncandidates, Buddhist Monks like Rathana to enter the Parliament. Going forward, it would be most appropriate to restrict the National\nList nominees to Specialists, at least until mandatory minimum academic\nqualifications are stipulated in a future Constitution Assembly.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr M D P DISSANAYAKE Like in many other countries, there are no mandatory academic or professional qualifications required by a person to be elected as President, Prime Minister or Cabinet of Ministers of Sri Lanka.  Late Mr D S Senanayake\u2019s qualifications were never questioned when he became our First Prime Minister under independent Sri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-m-d-p-dissanayake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91567","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=91567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}