No more murders within state university premises - Minister S. B. Dissanayake

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

The government would not allow any freshers to be harmed within any state university premises as a result of ragging. Therefore, parents need not fear for their children who enter state universities. Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake told the Daily News in an exclusive interview.

The interview:

Q: How are you going to save undergraduates and students of other state educational institutions from ragging?

A: The university student from Sabaragamuwa University who was sexually abused and brutally tortured by raggers is now in hospital in a critical condition. He does not eat, sleep or speak. He just gazes at the sky. He is very scared of fellow university students who visit the hospital to see him. He identified them as the same persons who ragged him and tries his best to avoid them and stay away from them. After initial treatment he recovered to a certain extent but once again his condition became serious.

Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake

The mother of Samantha, who was killed by raggers, assisted by a lecturer at Sri Jayawardenapura University some time ago, published a book on her son recently. I was at the launch as a special guest. In that book she describes how raggers planned the murder, taking a long time and executed it. There she says how they prepare weapons such as sharpened sticks and sticks with nails attached to them to kill Samantha. In her book she says they caught him, dragged him into a room with the assistance of a lecturer and brutally killed him, hitting his eyes using hand made weapons. When he was dying they crushed his head using a computer. Then they blocked the gate by sleeping across it to prevent the vehicle from taking him to the Accident Ward. When a student announced his death, a group of students including three female undergraduates shouted saying, ‘It is over...we killed the dog’....expressing their happiness and fulfillment. His mother says he was murdered because he was against ragging.

The raggers strip Buddhist monks and force them to perform unnatural sexual activities in front of all. They never let them wash themselves after using toilets and keep them that way for two weeks. They never let them brush their teeth. They take extra ‘care’ of Buddhist monks in order to destroy their personality. It is the female students who force male students to perform unnatural sexual activities in front of them. After doing so, they inquire about the feeling from their victims. They never let freshers learn English, use the library for long hours and make contact with lecturers. In Hardy, the raggers do not allow females to wear underwear. They shower them with the dirtiest water in the world at the end of the rag. This shows the abnormal and cruel mentality of raggers.

The main objective of all these activities is creation of slaves who do not have a backbone and a personality. Making slaves without any leadership qualities is their main aim. The government spends billions of rupees to develop the cream of the cream (spirit of the intelligent students) of youths in Sri Lanka and the raggers reverse the whole process. Innocent students go into state universities and devils without personalities come out of it as graduates. These devils are the people who take over the future of Sri Lanka. Even the Open University was affected by ragging. Ragging in the majority of universities has already been eradicated by up to 90 percent.

Q: In the past, many undergraduates were murdered and many became permanently disabled due to ragging. Is there any possibility of paying compensation to them/their parents on the basis of that the country’s laws failed to protect their lives?

A: A large number of students abandoned university education because of ragging. My younger sister’s daughter is among them. There are a large number of students who became permanently disabled/killed by raggers. At present their parents suffer because of their loss. A programme is to be initiated to gather them all on to one stage and offer compensation and relief. Only then will the public see the gravity of the problem that exists in the Sri Lankan education system.

Q: What prevents successive Sri Lankan governments from implementing the country’s common law for university students (adults above the age of 21)? How would the government assure the safety of the lives of freshers?

A: That is simply because the university authorities and lecturers were scared of students. During past 35 years all state universities were governed by students, not by Vice Chancellors, Deans, Department Heads or lecturers. Higher Education Ministers stopped visiting state universities. In 1952 late Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake was attacked by undergraduates but he said and did nothing stating they are children.

In 1957, they attacked late Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike he did and said nothing stating that it was a bunch of toxes who hooted. In 1971, they attacked Badudeen Mahamud but he said and did nothing. But at that time there was no terrorism in state universities under the leadership of MEP, Communist Party and leaders like Robert Gunawardena. In 1980s, JVP grabbed the power of state universities, destroyed all the other political parties and different opinion holders and promoted terrorism.

The lecturer who supported the killing of undergraduate Samantha is still lecturing at the same university without any problem and now leading the salary demand campaign. The persons who execute crimes were free without any trouble because the country's common law could not apply to undergraduates and state universities. Still there are some Vice Chancellors who are scared of students. Late Education Minister Richard Pathirana brought in an Act in connection with ragging but it could not be implemented. It is still there. The government will not let any fresher die hereafter because of the university ragging. Therefore no parent needs to be scared about the lives of their children who are selected to state universities.

Q: Do you think that Dons effectively use the 25 percent given to them for research activities? Do you think they have updated their knowledge? Do you think that their demands are reasonable?

A: Around 80 percent of them are involved in serious research and deliver positive results. They study, conduct research and generate new knowledge. They write research papers etc. A university lecturer should be a real researcher. In early days our professors had only one lecture per month because they were involved in serious research activities. But now around 20 percent of Dons do not do research.

The government increased salaries of public servants only by five percent. Of the total pay hike of 36.25 percent given to university Dons, 25 percent has been given as a research allowance. Even when lecturers and professors were given the pay hike, public servants remained silent. At the previous budget, the salary of a Ministry Secretary was increased by only Rs. 2,800, but salaries of senior professors were increased by Rs. 24,000. An executive officer in the public sector got only a Rs. 1,500 pay hike.

Q: Do you think that the Sri Lankans who become scholars using public funds do their duty towards their motherland? If not how you are going to make them do their duty?

A: Majority of them do their duty towards the motherland and there is a small group who do not do it. The majority serve their motherland even when they go abroad for a short period of time. Majority of them come back and serve their motherland. The scholars who left the country for long terms did so because they could not do anything creative within the university system.

Q: Sometimes results of internal examinations of state universities depend on lecturer - student relationships. It is possible for the best student to lose a first class. How you are going to address this long-standing issue?

A: There are a large number of accusations and complaints against university examinations. There are issues, such as, leaking question papers to friends, giving marks even without going through the answers etc. I am not telling these things. It is university lecturers who admit these things.

The examination system of state universities will be completely changed. At the moment university students do not have a chance to get their papers re-corrected when they have a doubt. But this is to be changed and the students are to be given a chance to go through their papers after marking them and get them re-corrected by another lecturer for a second time if they are not satisfied with the first marks.

Q: How you are going to ensure and strengthen international recognition received for our degrees offered by state universities?

A: The status of our state universities should be upgraded in order to maintain the recognition we have for our degrees and to gain further recognition. The meaning is we have to uplift the resources, the content of our university syllabuses, the knowledge and experience of lecturers of our state universities. The syllabuses should be upgraded and modernized on a regular basis. New subjects should be added to the traditional university syllabuses. More research, projects and consultations should be done to upgrade the quality of our university education.

In addition our state universities should be free of constant conflicts and they should generate income. Universities in foreign countries which award internationally recognized degrees have many foreign students. Sometimes they exceed 50 percent of the total number of students in those universities. Universities, such as, Oxford, Howard and Sanford, generate a large amount of income. Sri Lankan state universities depend 100 percent depend on the Treasury. Sanford University generated 19 Nobel Prize winners and Sri Lankan lecturers should improve themselves to international standards.