No more ragging at universities- Higher Education Minister S B Dissanayake

H L Sunil Shantha Kalutara Daily News Corr and N Rajaratnam Thinakaran Corr

Today the university qualified students enter universities with shortcomings. Their interest which they had before entering universities, have been found to decrease due to these shortcomings.

Many undergraduates have a problem of finding employment once they come out from universities today. These students alone cannot be held responsible for this, once leaving the university, hereafter we will make sure that, all these daughters and sons will get employment, soon after they leave universities in future, after completing their degrees, Higher Education Minister S B Dissanayake stressed these points when he addressed the students of the second batch of Leadership Training and Positive Thinking Development Programme (LTPTDP) jointly conducted by the Higher Education Ministry and the defence Ministry, at the Kalutara Police Training School (PTS) (24).

The second phase of the leadership training programme at the Kalutara PTS, had admitted and registered 77 boys and 238 girls, all Muslims, from various parts of the island, and their training programme lasted for 3 weeks, continuously.

Minister Dissanayake further said, "the best and the top positions in the world today are been held by the doctors, engineers and the most talented educationists who were doing studies at universities during our time."

We send all of you, the newly selected undergraduates to universities in the month of October and I hope, you will be able to study at universities happily and without any problem or difficulty, due to this training, given by the police training officers here and I am most thankful to all of the officers who made sacrifices in training these children. I'm glad to inform you that, you all are given the best Lap top, at universities, which helps you go forward in your higher educational work, in parallel with the latest global requirements.

The Government hopes to conduct all courses in the universities in English medium in future.

Arrangements will be made to do special degrees and Computer Technology in English. Those who are weak in English, are to be given a special training in English.

You will not face any sort of ragging or any sort of physical or verbal harassments hereafter, at any university and those who are found harassing innocent freshers at university will be suspended.

The Minister had a friendly and cordial chat with new entrants, soon after his speech at the auditorium.