Five demands of strikers met - Dr Nawaratne

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr Sunil Jayantha Nawaratna, said five core demands of the striking academics have been met already and the ministry is planning to deal with the rest of their demands to reach an amicable solution to the problem.

Asked why the FUTA must stubbornly continue with their trade union action while the government has indicated its commitment to resolve their issues, FUTA Secretary Madujith said, they staged rallies with the aim of having a negotiated settlement.

He said there have been over 20 meetings held between them and the government to discuss their problems from July last year to July this year. "They ended without much success," he said.

Asked if he implied that the government has not done anything at all to answer their problems, Madujith said the government has passed a broader policy document with eight conditions for higher education development.'

This is consequent to our negotiations we had with Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Treasury Secretary Dr. P B Jayasundara.

The policies received Cabinet approval. They incorporated and increased allocation for education, establishment of a post-graduate university within four years, autonomy of universities, establishing a Presidential Commission to look into higher education reforms and recognition of university academics under a special category.

"They also included that the government would improve infrastructure and research facilities in universities, the government would obtain assistance of university teachers when implementing educational reforms and that it would obtain the assistance of university academics to develop the country," he explained.

"The problem we have is that we want to know specific details as to how the government would implement these policies. We have made 41 demands.

The government must have incorporated our demands to this Cabinet note. But we need to to know the specific details of how they could manifest and put them into operation," he said.

Commenting on their demand for a salary increase, Madujith said, they have been referred to the Labour Commission for a process of voluntary arbitration.