Blighted seats of learning

Sri Lankan universities, which at one time ranked among the best in Asia, are today in the doldrums, mainly on account of student unrest. This assessment by Higher Education Minister Prof. Vishwa Warnapala confirms afresh an impression about local universities which is widely held among the public and which has crystallized in gradual degrees over the years in the popular consciousness as a truth beyond dispute.

Endemic student unrest is undoubtedly a principal factor in the qualitative decline of our universities. The intermittent interruption of academic activities by student agitations has not only precipitated the closure of many of our seats of higher learning over the years but has led many a student and parent to despair.

It is the grief among the latter on seeing the careers of their children being shattered which has prompted the more wealthy parents and guardians to seek for their wards higher educational opportunities abroad.

On the face of it, no one could fault them for making these choices because of the almost universal yearning in parents to shower the best on their children in regard to the vital needs of life.

However, it is not many who could thus send their children to seats of higher learning abroad. The vast majority of parents whose children qualify to enter local universities lack the means to send them to alternative higher educational institutions abroad and are left utterly helpless and desperate when their wards cannot be accommodated in local universities or when the latter are shut-down on account of student unrest.

Our belief - which is widely shared - is that every student who qualifies to pursue a higher education should be given an opportunity to do so. Denying them this precious and great opportunity merely because the absorptive capacity of our traditional universities is limited, amounts to a grave injustice.

This is the reason why the possibility of establishing private degree-awarding institutions which meet the standard specifications for a sound higher education set by the State, needs to be explored.

This idea may be anathema to some, but what must be remembered is that these institutions would be operating under the purview of the State.

In other words, degree-awarding status would be accorded most discreetly by the State and very selectively. This proposition should now be carefully assessed by the authorities. This would not amount to compromising the concept of free education.

The qualitative decline of our universities could also be traced to a gradual deceleration of what may be called the disinterested pursuit of wisdom and knowledge among some of our academicians.

That is, the tendency to conduct research for expanding our knowledge frontiers is softening among our academics and this, of course, is transmitting itself to our undergraduate population too.

This accounts for the diminishing of the stature enjoyed by our universities as centres of intellectual and creative activity. Increasingly, the feeling is gaining ground that we are lost in a “cultural desert”.

We need to act on these insights before it is too late and recoup our losses in the higher education sphere.