Minister on division within JVP

“There is a student movement within universities which aims to launch another armed struggle in the country, claimed Higher Education Minister S B Dissanayake. He was addressing the university community during an inspection tour of the Jaffna University yesterday.

He said this new situation has been created by the division in the JVP into two groups. The new faction is planning an armed struggle once again. However, today there is only a handful of students in universities affiliated to the JVP. These students have joined the splinter group bent on and armed struggle.

‘They too had visited the Jaffna University to canvass support for their cause. University students should never fall prey to such sinister motives as such things would never be allowed again, he said.

The minister said the Jaffna University has received the biggest allocations of funds this year compared to other universities. The hostel accommodation problems of the Jaffna University students will be resolved soon by utilizing these funds. The minister said he was aware that monthly room rent which was Rs 1000 to Rs 2000 earlier has soared to Rs 1000 to 2000 per day with the development of the tourist trade.

The best solutions for this would be to build new student hostels. He said the Vice Chancellor and Dean of Faculties of the Jaffna University have now formulated a programme to offer a decent meal to university students following complaints by certain parents, specially those of Sinhala students that the food they received was awful. Sinhala students are sent to the Jaffna University solely on their merit rather than on a subtle programme to change the ratio of students in favour of the Sinhala community, he said.

The minister said the government did not plan to bring forward a private universities Bill. The Private University Act was passed in 1987 by the J R Jayewardene regime. Under this Act 59 Institutes of Higher Education have been set up in the country on BoI status. Of them 51 are still in operation.

‘Some of them offer three-month diploma courses, six-month higher diploma courses and one year degree and two year post graduate degree courses. Certain others back off after leaving students stranded. The UGC and the Ministry of Higher Education had no authority to control these institutions.

They are therefore trying to introduce a new Act to enable the state to manage and regularize such institutions only.

Minister Dissanayake also said that a certain Tamil newspaper had recently reported a speech made by him during his visit to the Eastern University.

What he said was that Tamils in North and East never stood for division of the country. Neither did India want to divide Sri Lanka. It was the Western powers who wanted to divide Sri Lanka to achieve their grand plan of dismembering India.

Small Industries and Enterprise Development Minister Douglas Devananda, UGC chairman Prof Gamini Samaranayake and several other UGC officials were also present.