Professor decries street demos by Dons

Indika Polkotuwa

It is improper and most unbecoming for university Dons who are the country's intellectuals to demonstrate on the streets like ordinary workers and hold the undergraduates, considered the country's future human resource, to ransom, said Prof. Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa, Head of the Mass Communication Department of the Kelaniya University.

At this moment it is the bounden duty of these Dons to give up work stoppages, picketing and other protest campaigns and settle down to impart knowledge to the nation's children who have to take charge of its future well-being. Prof. Piyadasa said university academic staff were granted the highest salary increase in university history recently and it was unfair on their part to press for another salary increment.

'Only a very short period of three years had elapsed after the country ended brutal terrorism. When the country is trying to raise its head again and march towards development and progress intellectuals such as university academic staff should assist that endeavour by acting in a more responsible manner with a sense of national conciousness, he said.