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Speech made by Dr. Karunasena Kodithuwakku Minister of Human Resource Development, Education and Cultural Affairs on December 22, 2003 on the occasion of celebrating 25th Anniversary of University Grants Commission at the UGC Auditorium

(Contnued from Monday, January 19)

Therefore the UGC and our university system must face this challenge. They must identify the necessary skills that should be imparted to the graduates to enable them to be competent within a world that would emerge in the next 10 to 15 years or more. In that respect, bi-lingual skills with an emphasis on English language would become a must for every graduate who would pass out from our universities.

The graduates who lack such skills today would not have suffered the fate of unemployment, had at least some of them given an opportunity to learn the English language skills within the limited facilities in the universities. Unfortunately universities have not been successful in being sufficiently aggressive and path-directing in this respect. It is imperative therefore that our universities should be able to produce graduates to be bi-lingual at least within the next 10 years.

Without taking long let me also briefly comment on postgraduate education, rationalisation and freedom of expression and violence. It is true that the Government is committed to free education up to the first-degree level. The universities have not been barred from developing their academic work at the postgraduate level on at least cost-recovery basis. this, I believe, has been done exceptionally well on a viable basis by the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM) of Sri Jayewardenepura University.

The other postgraduate institutes and/or courses are being run with tax payers money. Is it correct to ask the tax payers, many of them poor, who are already over-taxed, to bear the burden of these indirect taxes to finance the postgraduate studies of persons who engage in such studies partly to enhance their earning capacity by several folds.

Is it equitable? Whilst the MBA courses of PIM levy a fee of Rs. 200,000, only 20% of the cost of the postgraduate courses such as MD at the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine is being recovered by way of fees. Does it mean that the quality of MD is inferior? Doesn't the social justice and equity demand that the cost of those postgraduates be recovered from those segments who would become privileged to earn higher incomes from their professions with such post-graduate qualifications? Take the health sector manned, managed and professionalised by the beneficiaries of free education.

This sector has now become a trauma to the innocent patients who avail themselves of such services, primarily because of incessant strikes, campaigns of work to rule, boycotts and picketing which have become more of a general occurrence than ever before. The truth is that these innocent people are the ones who subsidised the education expenses of these beneficiaries.

The universities had a well conceptualised programme for rationalisation. It was intended after the universities will be developed as Centers of Excellence (COE). University of Colombo would become the COE for Medicine, Jayewardenapura for Management, Moratuwa for Engineering and Kelaniya for Languages and Classical Studies etc. within Colombo group of universities.

Under this rationalisation each of these COEs was to have the best pool of expertise in the respective disciplines. It was thought that better Gurukulas, traditions of research, well needed innovations and inventions, creations of art and culture would forthcome. To what extent have these goals been achieved? I would like to be corrected if I were wrong.

Almost the same study courses are now provided at many universities. Of course with the increase in the university intake, considering the demand for courses with economic value and to respond to the demands of maintaining equity and balance if facilities are provided at many different places it cannot be questioned.

However, if without such considerations being the basis if almost the same study courses are being provided it has to be questioned. The cost differences of these same courses replicated at different universities vastly vary and are out of proportion compared to the benefits.

Is it correct to say that a faculty which produces a graduate with a less unit cost is much more efficient than a faculty of which the unit cost is much more for the same degree course? Or else, does it mean that the quality of the degree from the university where the unit cost is much higher is better that the degree obtainable from a university where the unit cost is lower? The universities themselves must answer this question.

The universities must be places where freedom of expression is allowed and sustained. Effective dialogue among students and academics must be ensured in the universities if those seats of learning are to be universities in proper sense. What is the reality in our universities? According to my experience only two universities in Sri Lanka, namely Colombo and Moratuwa have advanced to such level.

The credit for that must go to the students of those universities who can tolerate the views of others even though such views are not similar to theirs. Unfortunately in other universities only the views of one party is allowed to be expressed. It is noted that the universities where freedom of expression has been suppressed, more incidents of violence have sprung up and the overall development of such universities has continuously been retarded.

If student violence would continue in our university system, not only employers would look at other institutes, even more and more students who secure eligibility to enter our universities would opt for other alternative institutes and professional courses elsewhere.

How do we resolve this situation? Do the university professionals who are experts in this country need advice from others? I think it is within the capacity of the university professionals themselves to find answers to these issues.

The observations made above should not be misconstrued as my taking a view that nothing much positive has come out of our university system consequent upon the establishment of UGC. The university system as a whole has progressed substantially, more universities have been added.

New faculties have been established and new courses of study have been commenced whilst the existing ones being consolidated. We had only two Medical Faculties in 1978. Now we have six altogether. More Management Faculties have also been established. Almost all the universities have progressed very strategically into their disciplines with special attention to providing Information and Communication Technology while Colombo and Moratuwa have become centres of excellence for ICT education.

I must also make another important point. Qualify Assurance Projects have been pursued with much perseverance. In respect of these endeavours, UGC and the respective universities must be commended. We have to respectfully remember the visionary and untiring efforts of Professor Stanley Kalpage who was a tower of strength many in the system at that time.

The endeavours of the university system would not certainly have turned out to be what it is today, if not for the exceptional dedication of many of the professionals who worked hard and continue to do so being driven by the concern for the well-being of our younger generations.

Most of these professionals, I am aware, do put in additional hours of work sacrificing their personal time, sometimes to cover up the shortcomings of some of their colleagues who are in the system and are not serious about their contribution.

I would like to remember with great respect the eminent Professors Stanley Wijesundera and Patuvitavitarana who paid the supreme price with their lives working for the system and purely because of their dedication to uphold the principle of the system.

It was the darkest age in the history of the university system. It was the ruthless, anti-social and opportunistic politics under the name of liberation misleading the youth of our country that saw to these eminent persons' tragic demise.

The fact that this danger is not over is well borne out by the incidents at the universities during the last few years culminating in the loss of a life of a student owing to the assaults by his own colleagues at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Even as of now, many of our professionals in the system have to act with extra caution and trepidation because of the devious manoeuvring so these anti-social groups yet operating within the university system and adamant in disrupting it.

Under these circumstances, it is nothing but right for UGC and the universities to question their own raison detre. It should be the foremost objective and the immediate task of the UGC to enable the universities to change and change fast to be effectively responsive to the needs of the society.

Speed of action is of utmost importance. The universities must be transformed to become Centres of Excellence, leading the society and not be led. The professionals within the university system are well aware of the type of competencies that must be imparted to the students if they are to be useful citizens in the present world.

The need for knowledge of international languages, at least English is of immediate importance. The university academics must resist at all times the attempts of any group to secure compromise on professional integrity in various ways.

They must begin to make serious contributions by way of research, innovations, inventions and creations of art and culture. I believe that whilst supporting free education until completion of a First Degree at a university in Sri Lanka, the universities must endeavour to develop their postgraduate study courses on a viable basis if not at least on a cost recovery basis.

Finally I wish to state that given the fairly high level of exposure to what is happening around the world and the professional capacity that the university academics possess, they should take the lead in finding way how our university system must be changed and evolved to be responsive to the demands of our society, rid them of violence and make them Centres of Excellence which could stand at par with at least the eminent seats of learning within this region.

(Concluded)

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