Anti-intellectual behaviour of university students Part- v:

Remedial measures

Prof. Shantha K. Hennayake

One of the central problems of our University education is giving it free to the recipient and never expecting anything in return. Even in India and Bangladesh - our neighbours University education is not free. Here is Sri Lanka, not only university education is free, but the students are paid for their food and lodging during their stay at the University.

This has created and nurtured a mentality that University education is a right and that the State is obligated to provide it for them. The student union and its leaders are championing this issue.

There is no argument against the egalitarian principle that the State must provide general education to all children so as to create a literate citizenry. The story on higher education primarily relates to intellect and excellence (quality and relevance).

The universities should provide the intellectually challenging environment for excellence. Undermining this by the student union on the basis of politically popular egalitarian argument is detrimental to university education in this country.

However, the free education, free food and lodging during the stay and an almost guaranteed degree at the end of the stay, irrespective of their performance (how many university students fail to get a degree?) has made many a student not to take their studies seriously. Learning is a low priority activity among University students.

The free time and money is used for JVP student political activities including, collecting money from the street, poster making and pasting, attending protests and demonstrations, defying authorities, breaking laws and may be some studies as well. This must be changed.

The first option is to tie the Mahapola and other bursaries to the students’ performance. If the students fail to obtain a higher level of GPA (here the minimum should be at least 3.3) they should be disqualified from getting Mahapola for the next semester. This will force the students away from JVP political activities back into the studies if they want to continue their University education.

The second option is to completely abolish Mahapola and initiate a loan scheme for students underwritten by the Government and to require them to pay back once they secure employment.

The student in general and student union still living in the socialist dogma in particular must be to understand that there is no free lunch. Although they may receive the Mahapola free, the society is paying for it.

Why should the entire society pay for student politics which actually undermine the University education? Once the students realize that they are spending borrowed money and that they have to pay it back later, they will hesitate to waste their time at the University. The Mahapola funds can actually be used to improve the physical and human resources of the University.

Normal law within the university

University should not be a safe haven for any form of terrorism - armed or unarmed. The behaviour of student union leaders and supporters approximate unarmed terrorism. This behaviour can be curtailed only if normal law of the country is made effectively operational within the University.

It has proven beyond all doubt that the existing security management systems in the Universities are totally incapable of restoring the law and order even under the by-laws of the University let alone the national laws.

This is not to suggest that police stations should be opened up in all Universities, far from it. But the national law enforcement agencies should have the same access to the University which they have elsewhere in the country.

The student union and its leaders should not be allowed to interpret the sacred tradition of intellectual freedom as freedom to disobey and disregard the law.

The special provision of having to obtain prior permission from the University authorities to enter the University premises has actually favoured and encouraged the unlawful and criminal activities of the students union and its leaders. Only the student union and leaders oppose police coming into the universities and investigating the offences! Should one be surprised why?

Disciplined university students

It is sad that four year of University education produces a graduate who is perceived by the larger Sri Lankan society in negative terms. The problem starts even before they enter the University. It is a well-known public secret that the JVP approaches the potential University students immediately after they receive the letters of selection from the UGC initiating the process of indoctrination the hallmark of which is insubordination, anti-social and anti-intellectualism.

The most effective yet destructive indoctrination begins during ragging which last anywhere between five to seven weeks. As stated earlier, ragging is carried out by the sympathizers and core supporters of the student union.

By the end of the ragging season, the union and its leaders have been able to produce socially irresponsible and intellectually bankrupt (anti-social, anti-intellectual, anti-capital, anti-profit, anti-rich, anti-democratic, anti-authority, anti-discipline and anti-law and order) bunch of students.

This is too dangerous to ignore and to be complacent about, especially because the country has to depend on them to fill the responsible positions in the future. The last thing this country can afford is to have a bunch of undisciplined bureaucrats leading all the State institutions in the country.

In this context, the Government itself thus should initiate an orientation program to the potential university students from the beginning. This can be achieved by organizing a national level disciplinary program for the selected university students.

As we have experienced, even with the best of the system in place, it still takes close to one year for a student to come to the University from the date of sitting the qualifying examination. For most students, this one year is merely a waiting time without engaging in any meaningful or productive activity. What is suggested here is to have a national orientation program implemented at district level.

The main theme to be covered by this orientation program should are patriotism, discipline and civic responsibility and good citizenship. This program should consist of series of lectures followed by a physical training program and involvement of various community development activities.

The whole program should be coordinated by the Sri Lanka Army with strict discipline. The objective of the program is the inculcation of patriotism, responsible behaviour and discipline among the students selected for the Universities.

This will also contribute positively towards nation building among all ethnic groups in the country. The Government should bear the cost of this program held on weekends at selected centers in every district.

This will not only undermine and nullify the student unions’ sinister move to brainwash the newly selected students into socially irresponsible and unpatriotic gang, it will also produce patriotic, civic minded and disciplined University students whom Sir Ivor Jennings dreamt several decades ago.

What this nation in general and the national leaders in particular need to realize is that the Sri Lankan Universities no longer produce the graduates that Sir Ivor Jennings hoped for.

Many eminent academics and public intellectuals have written extensively about the general decline of the Sri Lankan University education. While many stakeholders within and outside the University system are responsible for this pathetic state, the primary responsibility of this is the deterioration of the intellectual environment within our Universities created by none other than the JVP student politics.

For the student union and its leaders, the intellectualism is an anathema. They still live within the dogmatic ideology of simplistic and crude Marxism. The latest poster put up by the student union in Peradeniya summarized this unrefined and almost stupid world view. It downgrades university education sarcastically by arguing that there is no use of reading books when there are problems in the country as defined by the student union.

All past efforts by the University to re-establish intellectual environment within the University by instilling sense and responsibility into the student union and leaders have failed consistently and decisively.

In fact, the heinous nature of the student unions and leaders to undermine the intellectual environment in the University seems to be on the slow but steady rise. Over the years, the student union and leaders have been adopting similar tactics of terror and intimidation as used by the LTTE to destroy democratic oppositions, silence critiques, undermine authority, defy law and order, inculcate hatred against others especially who are better off, ensure unconditional loyalty, prevent defection and cooperation with the authorities.

The failure of the universities to re-establish the necessary intellectual environment for the knowledge-loving, academic minded serious students, because of the destructive and idiotic behaviour of handful student leaders and their supporters should not be tolerated by any responsible society, especially because the Universities are maintained by the taxes of the ordinary people of this country who expect our Universities to excel in the modern world.

Thus, the Government which taxes the people and then decides how to spend that money, should not be wasting billions of rupees to promote anti-intellectualism perpetuated by destructive student unions and leaders.

The Sri Lankan University education has been a victim of the anti-intellectualism, terror and intimidation of the student union far too long. They should not be allowed to find refuge in the freedom and sanctity of the University environment granted for the sake of intellectual development.

The Government and policymakers should go beyond petty and expedient political games that require appeasing the student unions and the leaders irrespective of their anti-intellectual and destructive behaviour. Instead, the responsible Government leaders should go beyond offering rhetorical and ineffective challenges to the student union and leaders and should muster enough courage to bring an end to the student union menace that has been the bane of the Sri Lanka universities.

The student union must be told politely and yet in no uncertain terms, three things; first they should practise and allow democracy in University student politics, second they should desist from all forms of ragging and third, they should not disrupt in any way the intellectual environment of the University.

For the sake of the future of the Sri Lanka’s university education and, by virtue of the fact that University student may go to occupy the higher positions in the bureaucratic structure of this nation, the Government needs to reclaim the Universities in the fullest sense of the word. Only very little time is left. Concluded

The writer is attached to the Department of Geography University of Peradeniya