 Public servants who yesterday charged that the government had failed to allocate funds for the salary increments for them are preparing them selves for a show down in order to win their long standing demands.Public Services Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Saman Ratnapriya told the Daily Mirror that they would be meeting Monday (October 31) to decide on their future course of action in order to win their demands. Mr. Ratnapriya charged that government had turned a deaf ear to their demands as no extra funds have been allocated for the payment of salaries in the appropriation account. He said only a minimal sum of Rs.70 billion had been allocated to the health care sector while only Rs.33 billion had been set aide for education. This he said is a clear indication that the public servants in these sectors are not going to get their demands at this budget as well. (Yohan Perera) |
Monday, October 31, 2011
Govt. failed to allocate funds for salary increments: Public Servants
nnovation key for buoyant tea industry
October 30, 2011, 7:01 pm
Welcome
Welcome to the sixty third edition of this regular column. Here, we discuss a wide range of topics around Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), many aspects of Business, Education, Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Innovation and the Society at large.
Tea Sector in Sri Lanka
Our topic last week revolved around agriculture. Let’s keep it in similar lines today, and discuss about Tea! Who doesn’t love a good cup of tea anyway?
Global tea production is primarily lead by the countries India, China, Kenya and Sri Lanka. These four countries account for about 75% of the world’s tea production. In fact India and China are the largest tea producers in the world, but due to their huge populations, domestic consumption is very high too. So they aren’t very big exporters. Hence, Sri Lanka and Kenya are the largest exporters of tea in the world. Sri Lanka held the position of number one in this category for a long time but for the first time in recent history, Kenya surpassed us in 2007. Kenyan tea production has been growing strong, mainly due to the increase in cultivated land mass and improving production skills with regards to the tea sector.
As we saw last week, services and industry sector contributes more to our GDP than the agriculture sector. However, the tea sector earns over 1 billion USD a year for us (USD 1.18 in 2009, which is roughly 15% of the total export income) and that’s the second largest export revenue earner for the country, only second to the garment industry. About 1 million people are directly employed in the sector. So, it is still an extremely important socio-economic factor for the country.
Challenges
According to records, Sri Lankan tea yields have been lower than those of the competing countries such as Kenya, China and India. Kenya has average yields of about 2000 Kg per hectare while India has it around 1800. The Sri Lankan average is around 1400 Kg per hectare. This appears to be a productivity issue.
Interestingly on the other hand, small tea estates (smallholdings) account for about 60% of the total tea cultivated land area. However they contribute about 70% of the total tea production. So, the larger estates in fact show a lower productivity level than the smallholdings. These large estates were privatised a couple of decades back and there seems to be more to be done by them to improve the productivity including more re-planting. When we look at some of the small holders, their dedication and productivity on a small land mass of less than 5 acres is actually admirable.
The cost of production is high for tea in Sri Lanka as for many other industries. Here, the Cost of Production (COP) is around USD 2.33 per kilogram. This is one of the highest in the world. Kenyan COP is almost half of this figure. Vietnam, India and Bangladesh etc have much lower COPs. The lower productivity is one factor that increases the cost. The labour costs are the other. Also, the cost of electricity has also increased considerably over the last few years.
So, the competition is increasing while we battle with the above issues. Additionally, our focus has been geared towards bulk tea over the years. However, slowly, the consumption patterns in the world are changing. Green tea, tea bags, iced tea and other forms of novel versions are increasing in demand. Also, beverages such as Coke are fast spreading across the world. Of course, it wouldn’t completely kill the demand for tea, but it could push it down. However, the biggest substitute and hence competitor for tea would be coffee, which commands a very strong presence in most countries around the world.
Improving the quality of life of the estate workers is a challenge too. Out of the people involved in the tea sector, a significant number are working and living in the tea estates. Out of these workers the vast majority are women. It always amazes me that if you take the top foreign income earners to this country, garments, tea and foreign employment, all of them are dominated by women. We owe more to these hard working people!
Innovation
In order to compete and thrive in the future tea industry innovation should come into play. New varieties of tea should give us the edge. In fact the profit-margins in the global market for specialty tea are higher. Also, while maintaining bulk tea exports, export of tea bags, green tea, instant tea and tea packets should also be increased.
The government has been trying to encourage more exports of value-added teas and has discouraged bulk exports by imposing a tax on the latter.
In addition, there is a need to export more value added tea. Ceylon tea was known for its premium quality. When the consumption patterns change, we need to innovatively respond to those changes. We need to maintain our uniqueness and at the same time image on high quality for teas that will be in demand in the future. There needs to be a lot of attention to this area.
This is where tea research would come in handy as well. I hope more will come out from existing tea research centres in Sri Lanka to further innovate our offering. Generally speaking, research is something that is lacking in Sri Lanka in most areas, not just in Tea. Even in the Sri Lankan university sector, the scientific research is comparatively less than in the developed countries. This is partly due to the unavailability of infrastructure, equipment and funds. On the other hand it’s the lack of linkage between the universities and the industry.
If energy (electricity) costs are higher, can we produce energy within the estates at a lower cost? I remember once someone pointed out that during British rule, almost all tea factories had their own small turbine to generate hydro-power but today only a handful is left with that facility. In fact when mains power lines were expanding, factory authorities just stopped producing electricity. That has added more strain on the national grid and their costs!
Branding
We need to continue to position Ceylon Tea as the world’s best tea. If we are to make the Tea sector hit revenue of about USD 2.5 billion, the brand needs more promotion, especially among the younger generations while responding to changing consumption patterns. There were reports a few months ago that The Ministry of Industry and Commerce will readily support the Tea Board and the Ministry of Plantations to achieve a $ 2.5 billion tea export revenue target. The Geographical Indicator (GI) Registration undertaken by Sri Lanka will make Ceylon Tea stronger in the international market. The government has committed Rs. 8.5 million for 2011 for the Geographical Indicator (GI) Registration to ensure ‘Ceylon Tea’ a protected brand in twenty countries.
Dilmah is a Sri Lankan brand that took Ceylon Tea to the world stage. Their association with the Sri Lankan cricket team as former sponsors and strong advertising overseas helped Dilmah as well as Ceylon Tea. When I was in Australia, I was always proud to see a Dilmah advertisement on TV. On the supermarket shelves, our brands have presence but then again cheaper brand-less products from low quality tea production countries take a lot of shelf space too.
Lets end today’s discussion with a few interesting points about tea.
* 80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what’s going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.
* Tea contains half the amount of caffeine found in coffee.
* Tea was created more than 5000 years ago in China.
* Tea is a natural source of fluoride that can help protect against tooth decay and gum disease
* The first book about tea was written by Lu Yu in 800 A.D
* Tea has potential health maintenance benefits in cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention.
* 96% of all cups of tea drunk daily in the UK are brewed from tea bags.
* Apart from tourism, tea is the biggest industrial activity in India.
If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you. ~Gladstone, 1865
Get in Touch
If you have an event or a group that you would like me to talk to, I can see if I can make some time for such activities. I am happy to speak to groups about the ICT/BPO sector, youth leadership, business, careers, communication skills, soft skills and entrepreneurship. I always take pleasure from such activities.
If you have any feedback, please drop a note to yva@lankabpoacademy.lk
See you next week!
The Columnist
Yasas Vishuddhi Abeywickrama is a professional with significant experiences. In 2011 he was recognised as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) in Sri Lanka. Yasas has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Colombo and a Masters degree in Entrepreneurship & Innovation from Swinburne University in Australia. He has worked in the USA, UK, Sri Lanka & Australia and being trained in the USA & Malaysia. He is currently involved in the training organisation, Lanka BPO Academy (www.lankabpoacademy.lk). Apart from this column, he is a regular resource person for ‘Ape Gama’ program of FM Derana (Sunday 3-5pm). Yasas is happy to answer your relevant questions – email him at yva@lankabpoacademy.lk .
The private medical college: A response to, ‘A different point of view’
October 30, 2011, 7:21 pm
by Edward Gunawardena
Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe, certainly not ‘one’ Dr. Marasinghe writing to The Island of 24th October has made a spirited but fruitless effort to defend the GMOA and the SLMC. Unfortunately their cases as the legal fraternity would describe are ‘black’. Interestingly, he has strayed from the main issues and dwelt lengthily on the virtues of free education. In the process as most faithful state employees do today, he has not failed to draw inspiration from the Mahinda Chintana too.
Presumably, as a true beneficiary of free education who enjoyed a Mahapola grant too, he is one of the few who has dedicated himself to the care of his countrymen free of charge and for a modest state salary shunning the lucrative domain of private practice.
In this response I shall succinctly, in point form comment on the somewhat abrasive observations made by Dr. Marasinghe.
1. 1 was appointed to the specially created post of Advisor UGC in June 1987 primarily because of the student unrest situation that prevailed at the time. Having been a Fulbright Scholar with exposure to the student unrest in the United States universities in the sixties and having been a student leader at Peradeniya in the 50s, the President and the Secretary, Higher Education realizing the need for a student friendly negotiator at the UGC offered me the job on very attractive terms.
2. During the NCMC dispute which was aggravated with the JVP militant student wing too entering the fray I was totally opposed to the police using force on students. My recommendation to the Chairman of the UGC was as a conciliatory measure give in to the student demand of not giving the MBBS (Col) degree to the NCMC students. I held the view that the NCMC be given degree awarding status so that there could be a "BIBS (NCMC, Sri Lanka). This suggestion was pooh pooed by the NCMC Board of Management which comprised senior doctors like Ratnavele, Heen Nilame and Sivasooriyarn. What is significant is that all these doctors possessed the first degree MBBS (Colombo) !
I was not a sycophant like the present day advisors. It was for this reason that I decided to resign even before I had completed two years in the job. It needs to be appreciated that an advisor cannot compel his advice to be accepted.
3. On free education, the learned doctor says, " The government provided primary, secondary and Tertiary education free of charge to the public."
This Statement is only partially true. A large number of young men and women who after years of hard work qualify to pursue tertiary education cannot be accommodated in state universities. This is particularly so in the discipline of Medicine. Hence the urgent need for private teaching institutions to fill this vacuum. Interested entrepreneurs deserve to be encouraged by the state to set up teaching institutions. Laying of standards and monitoring the maintenance of such standards should be a responsibility of the state.
Society has a duty and obligation to provide any person keen to be a doctor and possessing the necessary academic qualifications and also the means, to become a doctor. Organizations of this elite profession have a duty to encourage the private sector to come to their rescue and not allow such young men and women deserving to be doctors to end up as hospital labourers.
As for the statement purported to have been made by His Excellency the President and quoted by Dr. M, "I will not curtail the free education of the country’s children", I would like to pose the question,. "Who is the politician who will promise to abolish free education? " That will be committing hara-kiri.
With the inability of state universities to absorb all those who qualify for university education, the free education of an important segment of the population, Adult students, has already been curtailed. Children comprise the only segment left. Even at this level parents are burdened with all manner of levies, not to mention the bribes at admission. What price free education ?
4. As for the nations affordability of free education I agree the tax payers are there to bear the cost. But after sponging on the taxpayer for free education what moral right has a doctor to charge exorbitant fees or treat parents shabbily or abandon the people who funded his free education and seek greener pastures abroad. To add insult to injury, as I have pointed out some doctors resort to shameless ways of collecting their fees to escape taxes and defraud insurers of patients.
Considering the above the concept of free education "which is a solid and deep economic strategy which has given Lanka a long term benefit," according to the learned doctor, remains a myth particularly in the healthcare sector.
5. I agree with Dr. M that opposition to free education is not a new development etc. However to use his own words I read with disbelief and dismay his statement, The arguments were the same as now, the only difference was that those voices were not paid back then" (emphasis mine). A nasty, unwarranted insinuation indeed unworthy of the noble profession be represents. Perhaps he thinks that dissenting voices in an intellectual controversy are "like the unscrupulous doctors who are swayed by money bags", that the Editor speaks about in his note. Dr. M should refrain from judging others by his own standards.
6. My assertion, "What a village midwife did some years ago…………………… etc. remains unretracted Air Conditioned sterilized theatres, the availability of swift transport and communications, modern equipment such as incubators, baby rooms; efficacious drugs, well nourished mothers, improved pre and post natal care and nutrition, higher living standards, better trained medical staff etc. all have a bearing on maternal mortality rates.
But what I basically said was that what a midwife did then is today done by a FRCOG etc. I stand by this statement. What they normally perform is the identical task. They both assist in the natural biological function of childbirth. They both deliver.
But today again for monetary gain caesarian operations have become more the rule than the exception. I once came to know of a doctor who connived with parents to ‘cause a birth’ targeting the school admission date five years ahead! I wonder how ethical acts of this nature are ?
7. I am indeed happy to learn that our medical education has advanced to such a level that we are in a position to dump the Fellowship from the RCOG as our PGIM is comparable to any other such Institute in the world. This is no doubt a significant achievement. I hope the mandatory foreign training can be made reciprocal with doctors from the UK especially, receiving world recognized professional qualifications in Medicine , surgery, gynecology, Dentistry etc. from our own prestigious PGIM. We have beaten the ‘Suddas’ at cricket. It will certainly be great to teach them a bit of Medicine and surgery too.
8. When I referred to air – conditioned Theatres etc and asked ‘at what cost’? Dr. M discreetly side steps the question and says all labour rooms in state hospitals are being air-conditioned and patients not charged a cent. He pretends not to know the existence of the thriving private healthcare sector of which doctors from state hospitals are an integral part.
9. When I referred to the likelihood of the MBBS being replaced by degrees such as Bachelor of Cardiology I was only emphasizing the need to understand the world trend towards specialization in sub disciplines .
It cannot be denied that specialization is most marked in the medical profession. Are not there specialists or consultants for every imaginable ailment today ? As for the insult that my wisdom could not be any better than a village damsel’s, I am driven to surmise that ‘the working of the minds of village damsels’ is a guarded specialization of Dr. Marasinghe. A lucky man indeed !
Peradeniya will always be proud of me not for my wisdom but because as one who writes often to the newspapers I have never descended to personal levels, insults, insinuations or crude ridicule particularly in a public discussion or debate.
10. When I raised the question, ‘Do qualifications alone make a specialist doctor’ and went on to stress on the importance of ethics, I expected an intelligent and sensible response. With due respect to Prof. Lalitha Mendis permit me to say that her comment may satisfy a court of law. In reality no patient will complain against the doctor from whom treatment is sought ; not even a quak. Even law enforcement agencies eg. the Police or Inland Revenue are wary of going after errant doctors because of the historical regard and esteem the profession has enjoyed. These are the factors that are being ruthlessly exploited by some unscrupulous doctors.
If the SLMC is sincerely concerned it can certainly find ways and means of putting an end to the unconscionable exploitation of patients by doctors. The nation expects the SLMC to do its duty.
11. It is obvious that some medical graduates entertain doubts about the quality of their own degrees, received from state universities. What more evidence than their own name boards with qualifications displayed outside wayside clinics etc. One needs to only go round a little looking for these places. Seldom ‘is the qualification MBBS (SJP) MBBS (Ruhuna) MBBS (Kelaniya) to be seen. Such graduates prefer to write MBBS (Sri Lanka). The plain truth is that these graduates are not proud of the degrees they possess. The graduates with MBBS (Col) are proud of it because Colombo is reputed for better quality medical graduates.
12. Nowhere in my article have I referred to the Departments of Study in the PMC or the quality its staff. Dr. M has got his reading crossed somewhere. These hiccups do normally happen in uncoordinated joint efforts.
I must confess that I have the highest admiration for Dr. Neville Fernando. As a medical practitioner, as a politician and as a businessman his reputation for integrity is legendary. In all matters that affected his patients, his voters or his clients he has always acted with the highest sense of honour and dignity. It is shocking indeed for Dr. M in his eagerness to pay a tribute to Prof. Sheriffdeen to have referred to one of the seniormost living members of the medical profession as infamous, one of the most disparaging words in the English Language. I wonder what Prof. Sheriffdeen the much respected mentor of Dr. M. thinks of this most unethical outburst from one of his students.
The ‘professorship’ of Dr. Neville Fernando may seem to be challengeable. As Dr. M points out, traditionally a Professor was also a Head of Department in a university. Indeed this was the form at Peradeniya of my time. Much water has flowed under the bridges since then. Today there are many professors even outside universities. In many countries all university teachers are referred to as Professors, Associate Professors or Assistant Professors. Heads of affiliated Colleges of Universities are generally designated as professors. Before the formation of the University of Ceylon in 1942, the University College which existed, affiliated to the London University had a principal designated Professor. He was the famous Professor Robert Marrs. The Malabe PMC is affiliated to the Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy a recognized university and Dr. Neville Fernando is the head or Rector. His case is not different from that of Prof. Marrs of the now defunct Ceylon University College.
Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy has gone a step further. After a complete assessment of the credentials of Dr. Fernando and his contribution to the improvement of the quality of Higher professional education, the Scientific Council of the NNSMA has thought it fit to award Dr. Neville Fernando an honorary professorship.
It needs to be understood that the academic world has come a long way since the days when there was only one professor for a particular discipline and he/she was the Head of he Department. Having for nearly a century got accustomed to the British model we sometimes fail to comprehend the diversification that has taken place. The duration of courses, types of degrees, manner of recognition of contributions to academic progress etc. vary from country to country today.
I have been the most vociferous opponent of dubious Doctorates and Professorships in this country. However in this instance I have no reason to doubt the merit worthiness and legitimacy of the professorship of Dr. Fernando. It is indeed difficult to understand the venomous invective of "Dr. Marasinghe. The reference to Dr. Neville Fernando as an infamous ‘professor’ is unquestionably libelous and disparaging.
The laboured attempt by Dr. M to character assassinate Dr. Neville Fernando will certainly not dilute or absolve the culpability of the GMOA for the unethical practices that I have referred to. Even if the ‘Professorship’ of Dr. Fernando is considered to be ‘unethical’ it can in no way have an adverse impact on patients. But it cannot be denied that the public suffer innumerable inconveniences due to the unethical practices of some doctors. This argument of Dr. Marasinghe reminds me of the pithy Sinhala saying, ` Koheda Yanne, Malle Pol’ !
13. Prof. Sheriffdeen is a much respected Surgeon and teacher. He is indeed a man of eminence who has reached the zenith of his profession. The balanced views expressed by him needs to be respected. Unlike his pupil, Prof. Sheriffdeen has not berated the private sector. The crux of his letter to the Island is the emphasis on the absolute need to maintain the required standards in the teaching of Medicine. However, I have emphatically stated that the highest standards are not beyond the reach of the private sector. To reject the private sector participation in medical education on the unfounded presumption that private sector institutions are incapable of achieving the desired standards amounts to the throwing away of the baby with the bathwater,
14 Dr. H.H.R. Samarasinghe is another highly respected physician and gentleman. Contrary to what has been stated by Dr. Marasinghe I have not worked with him nor have I claimed in my article that I have worked with him. I have merely stated that in the early nineties, as a member of the Council of the Sri Jayawardenapura University I strongly supported the establishment of the Medical Faculty with Dr. H.H.R. Samarasinghe as the first Dean.
15. In his lengthy response to my article of 18th Oct. in abrasive ‘playing to the gallery’ type of language, Dr. M has been only able to get a few pot shots at less important peripheral outposts. The fortress remains intact strong as ever. Briefly the gravamen of my paper asserts that:
a) State universities are not in a position to accommodate all the students who qualify for medical education and the assistance of the private sector is vital.
b) Free education in its originally envisaged from does not exist. When it comes to the Tertiary level the greater number of the deserving students are shut out from the free streams. Even at primary and secondary levels the state has failed to provide free education to all deserving children. Hence the proliferation of international schools even in rural areas.
c) There is an acute shortage of doctors and the need to encourage the private sector to open teaching institutions.
d) Medical ethics are not being observed and patients continue to be inconvenienced and fleeced. Even open quackery continues to thrive unabated.
and
e) The GMOA drops its confrontational attitude and co-operate to establish and maintain the desired standards at the PMC.
All the above have been ignored or only scantily dealt with .
In conclusion, let me remind the learned doctor that the canards concocted by him that dissenting voices are paid voices and the Island has benefited from the media budget of the PMC for publishing my article have been more than adequately dealt with by the Editor. The unscrupulous doctors must be hanging their heads in shame !
To this I would like to add that ethics do matter very much in public correspondence too.
Closure mellows undergrads
Willing to sort out problems through dialogue
October 30, 2011, 9:47 pm
by Dasun Edirisinghe
Senior students of the Colombo University’s Management Faculty are willing to solve the problems that led to the closure of their faculty, through talks.
President (elect) of the Management Faculty Students Union Lahiru Randika told The Island yesterday that both student factions, hostellers and non hostellers, had already held a discussion with university administration on Friday.
The Management Faculty of the Colombo University was closed last Tuesday, until further notice, following clashes between two rival student groups.
The decision to close the faculty was taken following clashes over ragging incidents.
The faculty premises were declared out of bounds for all students except for the first-year undergraduates.
"We don’t want the faculty to remain closed," Randika said adding that they would help the university administration to trace the culprits, if it conducted an inquiry into the matter.
He said that due to closure of the faculty all examinations would be postponed.
"The next round of discussions to solve the problems would be held during this week," Randika said.
Senior Students Counsellor of the University Premakumara de Silva said that the clash had been between two student groups for and against ragging.
He said that ragging would be eliminated from the university at any cost.
"The students found guilty for Tuesday’s incident would be punished", said de Silva.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Creating "Knowledge hubs" and Destroying University Autonomy
October 29, 2011, 12:00 pm
BY Savitri Goonasekere
The Minister of Higher Education and the Ministry have frequently reminded the public, in recent months, that the government’s policy on education seeks to create a "knowledge based" society, that will make Sri Lanka the "knowledge hub" of Asia. It is interesting to examine the various initiatives that have been taken in working to achieve this objective.
Privatisation of Education
Many Sri Lankan lives have been lost in the confrontation between governments and student groups on the issue of privatisation of education. Much of the violence can be traced to the deep insecurities felt by those who will perhaps not be able to access fee levying institutions, or fears that graduates from the State systems will have to compete for employment with peers who will have acquired superior skills in better resourced private institutions. Governments in the past, have either succumbed to these pressures or permitted indirect privatisation of education through various methods. The present government is perhaps the first that has openly declared that their broad policy objective can only be achieved by permitting market forces to operate in the area of education, in harmony with an open rather than regulated economy.
Many educationists have for some time recognised that Sri Lanka does require a "public – private" mix of services in the area of education, in the same way that a public – private mix has been integrated into our health services. However they have also recognised the need to increase resources for the State education system, so as to retain the dimension of equity of access to educational opportunities that has been a treasured heritage of what is known as Sri Lanka’s "free education" project. They have repeatedly drawn attention to the need to ensure quality control in private education, so that areas of professional education in particular such as medicine, engineering and architecture will not suffer through the mushrooming of private institutions ill equipped to provide these services. These points of view are reflected in the current opposition of professional medical associations to the proposed private medical school and the earlier trade union action of university academics. They have raised issues of access, upgrading of resources for State universities and quality control. These issues have also been raised by individuals. A contribution by Professor Sherifdeen, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University of Colombo captures the essence of concerns regarding the need for quality assurance in medical education if this sector is to recognise private teaching institutions.
The Ministry of Higher Education however has not addressed these concerns or come up with proposals that answer the hard questions. Professor Sherifdeen has pointed out that quality medical education demands that clinical training is integrated into teaching from the very beginning. The "official response" to critics of the private medical college initiative is to say that a teaching hospital will be available sometime in the future for students who have already completed some of their training, and or that senior academics in the university system and the medical profession are willing to teach in this institution! What kind of "knowledge based" society do we expect to create through these unregulated private institutions that will provide the human resources for services that are key to our health services and development?
Faulty education policies of the sixties that imposed a monolingual education in Sinhala and Tamil denied many generations of bright Sri Lankan students the privilege of a quality education. Professor K N O Dharmadasa, Emeritus Professor of Sinhala in a recent contribution in the media has highlighted that Sri Lankan scholars from antiquity recognised the benefit of working on many languages, and were not confined to a monolingual tradition of teaching and learning. Academics teaching in the fields of medicine, engineering and architecture as well as science faculties developed their own strategies to ensure that English was retained in higher education. Others, mainly faculties of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law who received a large cohort of students were compelled by our politicians to accept monolingual teaching and learning in Sinhala and Tamil, without even the basic literature required for an undergraduate education. Some academics like Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya tried to save the system and were articulate voices of dissent, at a time when dissent was still considered legitimate academic freedom in our universities. When they lost the battle they left the country with other colleagues in the system, depriving the Sri Lankan Universities of some of the best teachers and researchers in these disciplines. Those who stayed, and others who joined them struggled to create good departments that have produced some of the best in the fields of law, social sciences and the humanities. University education in faculties such as medicine, engineering and architecture, retained their links to the professional associations and Colleges, and have ensured that professional standards have been maintained.
Rather than acknowledge these endeavours, the Ministry today dismisses all graduates and university departments in the national system, particularly in the fields of humanities and social sciences as failures. These graduates are seen as poor quality, socially alienated products of the national universities, who are parasites on society. This denigration of the State system appears to be a justification for denying adequate resources and moving towards privatisation. Academics are blamed, and there is no accountability for a failed post independence policy that imposed a monolingual education and created under resourced faculties of humanities, law, and social sciences.
The Ministry of Higher Education has now decided to provide the "quick fix" of opening the market for IT and English education through privatisation, as a magic solution to decades of ill advised education policy. The State universities have also been caught up in this momentum, with the Ministry making decisions on recruiting English lecturers from overseas for the universities, and the World Bank reminding universities that the ‘market" only needs graduates who have IT and English language skills. We must assume that this does not refer to fields like medicine, engineering and architecture where something more than English and IT skills will be required in higher education, even in a market economy.
Institutional memory is often very short in this country. The emphasis on the need for IT, English language skills, curricula revision etc was also part of the education policies of the previous government, when the late Mr. Richard Pathirane was Minister, and Dr. Tara de Mel and Professor R P Jayewardene were the senior bureaucrats in the Ministry of Higher Education. State Universities at the time with the support of the World Bank were encouraged and resourced to strengthen their teaching / learning environment, and also provide students and staff access to IT facilities.
The World Bank sponsored IRQUE Project on "Improving the Relevance and Quality of Education" seems to have departed from its original moorings and focused on infrastructure development. The State universities have benefited, provided better physical environs, and acquired more capacity to provide IT facilities for their students. But the impact on the teaching and learning environment is not visible.
These resources and support for the university system could have impacted on quality and been developed further, if the core structures within which those changes were introduced had been retained and strengthened. The Ministry of Higher Education at the time of the previous government operated within the framework of the Universities Act. The University Grants Commission and University Senates and Councils exercised the powers given to them under the Act, and any proposals for change were introduced in an environment of maximum consultation with respect for viewpoint difference. The Ministry guided policy but was not in the driving seat.
It is in this context that the public has to reflect on whether a new scenario where the Minister and the Ministry of Education replace the UGC, and the University authorities in the Higher Education sector, can or will contribute to making Sri Lanka the knowledge hub of Asia. Will the ‘privatisation’ project of the Ministry delinked from the University system and quality assurance systems of depoliticised professional bodies like the SLMC, pose further risks to higher education? Will it only produce diploma holders and graduates with incapacity for creative thinking, and professional insights, rooted in the already familiar learning tradition that emphasises the need to pass exams, obtain certificates, and exit. The internet has become a fertile source of plagiarism today. So this "borrowed" learning will be a passport to a certificate but not necessarily a path to quality education or the insights of creative thinking and wisdom required to meet the challenges of sustainable development in this country. The "privatisation" project runs the risk of producing professionals and graduates for the market who will be no better equipped than those who had to suffer the deprivation of a monolingual education. Hardly a resource to create a Sri Lankan "knowledge hub" in South Asia.
It is possible that despite the unregulated environment quality higher education will be delivered through private institutions set up as campuses of recognised universities from overseas. They will perhaps have a system of self regulation, and it is possible that there will be effective quality control. The degrees awarded by overseas universities through some private institutions already operating in the country conform to standards of those universities, ensuring quality control. Sri Lanka would indeed be fortunate if universities with a recognised reputation operate within our country and conform to standards that they set for themselves in their own countries. Such institutions will inevitably charge the kind of fees that will make an education in those institutions accessible to a very small elite of wealth and social status. How many of these products will contribute to Sri Lanka’s knowledge based society, and the vision of an Asian knowledge hub?
In this context we need to reflect on the impact of current education policy on the State system, for the majority of those who can and will be challenged to realise this dream of a knowledge hub and the realities of development will come from the State system.
The State University System
The trade union action of university teachers gave priority to anomalies in salary schemes for academic staff. However individual contributions to the press by many university teachers, particularly from the Peradeniya and Open Universities highlighted issues such as the politicisation of university administration, the failure of the University Grants Commission to perform its responsibilities as an independent regulatory authority, and the consequent erosion of university autonomy and academic freedom to make decisions regarding the teaching learning and research environment. These contributions have drawn attention to the manner in which academic authorities have been sidelined, with the Ministry making decisions that should be made, according to the Universities Act, by university teachers, their Faculties and Senates. The UGC, the regulatory authority now seems to hand down Ministry decisions to universities for implementation. There have been many instances where procedures clearly stated in the Act have been violated.
During the recent trade union action, letters from the Chairman UGC on resignation of heads of departments, and the subsequent withdrawal of those letters after direct negotiations by academics with the Ministry rather than the UGC, indicated clearly that the Ministry is making decisions and issuing instructions in violation of the Act, which the UGC meekly follows. A Dean of one Faculty holds office today, in direct violation of the provisions of the Universities Act on the age of retirement, and the provisions regulating this post. It is said that this was done on a cabinet decision communicated and acted upon directly by the Vice Chancellor overlooking the UGC, the authority that usually seeks cabinet approval for annual contract appointments of retired professors over 65 years.
The most recent erosion of academic freedom in the University system relates directly to the issue of the right to freedom of speech and expression in universities. Our Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of conscience, thought, speech and expression, and the protection of these rights has been recognised as fundamental values of university education in jurisprudence in our Supreme Court. And yet, the Vice Chancellor of a University has directed that a particular faculty should not employ a well known expert in the field as a visiting lecturer because in this administrator’s view, he is "an antigovernment" person. Instructions have now apparently been issued requiring the appointment of all visiting lecturers to be "vetted" by the Vice Chancellor and the "Deans Committee" – an ad hoc body created for management purposes, which has no authority to take decisions on academic programmes without the approval of Faculty Boards and Senates – the bodies entrusted with academic matters.
The Dean, Professors and Heads of Department of this University followed and implemented the Vice Chancellor’s instructions. Sadly they are all experienced university dons who are well aware of the role and responsibility of Faculties and Senates and Constitutional provisions on fundamental rights. A Vice Chancellor in the past refused to allow a guest speaker to address students, and the Minister has justified this action in parliament on the basis that "permission was not obtained." Disciplinary action has been taken against two members of Staff who commented critically on university policy on research in emails. People who have written letters to the newspapers or participated in trade union action are being called personally and being "warned." The erosion of core values on academic freedom has been incremental. Yet there is no individual or collective sense of accountability for destroying these values in universities that have produced some of the finest human rights judges and lawyers of this country. The lack of protest against these intrusions in Faculty Boards and Senates has culminated in the recent action to politicise the teaching programme. The politicisation of university administrators through an appointment process in violation of the Universities Act has legitimised a practice by which perceptions on political affiliation will determine teaching appointments.
In the past, Councils consisted of eminent persons including lawyers who would have guided the university administration and prevented infringements of these basic values of academic freedom and university autonomy. Council members of today, even those who are respected professionals, accept these violations in silence. They are following our eminent academics in the Cabinet, who ignore what is happening in universities through Cabinet decisions that violate both academic autonomy and the regulatory framework of the Universities Act. Can Vice Chancellors, Faculty Boards, Senates and Councils who ignore the core values of a university, Constitutional norms on freedom of thought, speech and expression, give leadership in creating the kind of vibrant intellectual community that is required if Sri Lanka is to become a "knowledge hub" in university education in Asia?
These erosions in academic freedom and autonomy which the majority in the academic community seem to treat as trivial infringements are especially worrying when they are combined with a subtle initiative to create a militarised environment that shows no regard for the right to intellectual freedom and viewpoint difference that should be respected in any university. The Friday Forum in its public statement analysed the documents in the much publicised leadership training programme for new students, highlighting the manner in which it deferred from non militarised university orientation programmes for freshmen and women in universities. We are now told that there is a proposal for the Ministry of Defence to integrate a "cadet programme" into English teacher training for schools that come under the Ministry of Education. The most recent initiative of the Ministry of Higher Education has been to instruct the UGC to ensure that all universities employ a State Security firm established under the Companies Act, with a structure that leaves decision making with the Secretary of Defence and several tiers of personnel with a military background. The website of the Company indicates the manner in which a military ethos has been integrated into what is described as a private security firm. By ensuring that such a firm takes over the security services in all State institutions and now, national universities, the State has successfully combined the work of law enforcement agencies with a ‘private’ law enforcement arm that can exercise their functions. In the process basic norms on legal protections and limitations on police powers within universities can be disregarded with impunity. The ‘private security’ can behave like the "State police," and also operate as an investigative agency that monitors what is perceived as "anti-government" subversion. Is this the type of security service that a university administration, if it had choice, would select for universities? The erosion of university autonomy in administration and the right to manage internal security arrangements in conformity with responsibilities placed under the Universities Act is as significant as the potential for misuse of the State private security service to further erode academic freedom in research and the teaching and learning environment. Some 100 university teachers, many of them from the University of Peradeniya have put their signature to a written protest against the compulsory imposition of a State owned private security system on the universities. However most academics have been silent on the issue.
Drs. Dayan Jayatillake and Rajiva Wijesinha who were academics in the national universities have publicly supported the militarised leadership training programme. Dr. Jayatillake sees in the leadership programme an excellent model for creating what in effect will be a "para military" youth corp "trained in the use of weapons" that could "bleed to death with a thousand cuts" any outside force or puppet regime seeking to destabilise the country. [Island 31 August 2011.] Rajiva Wijeinha reinforces this view point, apparently for different reasons. He sees the cadet corps proposal as a "heartening initiative" and the leadership programme as a successful "hearts and minds" effort where the military can contribute to "overcoming any sense of alienation" in these youth communities. He proposes similar leadership programmes by the military for ex combatants and also "youngsters (in the North and East?) who may not be qualified for government employment." [Island – 29 September 2011]. There is no explanation as to why the military should undertake this work. Is this too a subtle endorsement to the creation of a para military force within universities and among youth groups?
Both Dayan and Rajiva have taught in the State universities. They could not have forgotten the violence on campuses unleashed when para military forces and politicised student groups battled with each other. Have they forgotten the torture of students, the spectacle of a Vice Chancellor untying those suspected to be State security agents from a lamp post on Peradeniya campus, the butchered heads of students of this university placed around the pond near Jayatilleke Hall on that campus? It is extraordinary that the conflict and violence unleashed on campuses because of the manipulation of students by politicians of the government and opposition has been forgotten by some teachers who now cheerfully advocate "military" incursions in the teaching and learning environment of universities and the higher education system.
The disregard of the regulatory system under which universities have functioned for many decades by the present Minister and Ministry officials and some administrators in the university system is symptomatic of the general disregard of law and legal procedures in other State institutions. Witness the current controversies in regard to the rape of Sinharaja and our valued eco systems in the name of development, with the complicity or lack of awareness of government agencies entrusted with the task of conservation. Government authorities are no longer accountable – their excuse is that they were unaware, or were ignored, or had no responsibility for the decision making process. The Minister of Higher Education stated in Parliament recently, on 2 July 2011 in answer to a question by Mr. Eran Wickremeratne, MP, that the President selects a Vice Chancellor from three names submitted by a University Council. Inevitably the UGC was silent on the violation of the procedures under the Universities Act which places upon them the responsibility for recommending the person for appointment to the post of Vice Chancellor, by the President. Their excuse may be the same – "we were not consulted." There is a popular perception that the President is not bound by any laws, and that Presidential powers or the powers of high officers of government are absolute. Everyone has forgotten that the President, and these officers take an oath of office, and undertake to uphold the laws and Constitution of this country.
We continue to accept, without protest, gross acts of lawlessness and illegality and legitimise them by our reaction of amusement or indifference. When Minister Mervyn Silva takes the law into his own hands and administers summary justice according to his own standards, it is a matter for laughter or positive approval. As one writer to the Island said in a letter to the editor, when the law of the State fails, the law of the jungle must prevail. The recent local government elections were accompanied by the spectacle of important senior public servants campaigning openly for the government party candidates. This has become so acceptable and legitimate that no one even remembers the rules of the public service that do not give political rights to these persons. When a member of parliament and Presidential adviser and their supporters assault and murder each other, we do not question how special protection at State expense is given to the aggressor, or why there is no public statement on these incidents.
There is some hope in this dismal climate for university autonomy, in the university teachers who have had the courage to express their views, and challenge these irregularities. We Sri Lankans have in this post war period become very fond of distinguishing between so called "patriots and traitors and anti government saboteurs." We encourage intolerance and exclusion in a triumphalist vision of patriotism, forgetting that the Dhammapada advises Buddhists that ‘victory breeds hatred, the defeated live in pain’ and they should reject the concepts of both victory and defeat. Let us remember that some of our great patriots like Keppetipola Dissawe were once described as traitors because they challenged the political power of the State and the establishment. There may come a time when the few courageous academics of our national universities who fought for academic freedom and autonomy in the university system will be recognised as the true patriots of this country. If we lose this rich resource in the path to the Ministry’s vision of a knowledge based society, we may create a "knowledge hub" a ‘home grown’ system that is valued by no one else but our own politicians and presiding deities in the Ministry of Higher Education. Let us hope that sanity will prevail, and that these unsung heroes and heroines will not walk away from our national universities.
It is in the public interest that our policy makers understand that our university system cannot gain any kind of recognition that will make us the "knowledge hub of Asia," unless we recognised the importance of intellectual freedom, thought and expression, and realise the promise of these Constitutional guarantees in our universities. Internalising the forgotten concept of "pragnna" or wisdom that scholars of many generations in this country have associated with the acquisition of knowledge and learning is surely the only path to achieving excellence in our higher educational institutions. Several generations of politicians destroyed much that was valued in the intellectual environment of our universities. Let us hope that politicians of today do not strangle the State university system in pursuit of their distorted vision of a knowledge based society and an Asian knowledge hub in Sri Lanka.
(The writer served as Professor of Law and Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo)
Saturday, October 29, 2011
RECYCLE THE BULB
India consumes a few hundred million energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps every year and the volumes are growing. This is welcome news not just for the lighting industry, which places the number of pieces manufactured in 2010 at around 304 million, but also for climate change mitigation efforts. Yet this also presents a waste management challenge. The problem with fluorescent lamps is that they contain small amounts of mercury. Unfortunately, India has not evolved a good system to recover this hazardous heavy metal from end-of-life lamps. Moreover, the trend is towards dosing CFLS made in India with levels of mercury that exceed the international norm, apparently to improve their performance. A recent study by Toxics Link, a non-governmental organisation, indicates that mercury levels in domestic CFLS may even be four to six times the norm in developed countries. The issue was acknowledged by the Central Pollution Control Board three years ago. Since disused CFL and mercury-laden lamps, and fluorescent tubes, are generally dumped in municipal waste or sold to unorganised recyclers, there is harmful release of mercury into the soil, water, and air. This is happening in spite of the forward-looking "Guidelines for Environmentally Sound Mercury Management in the Fluorescent Lamp Sector" the Board issued in 2008.
Mercury can cause serious, well-recognised health effects when there is chronic exposure. Permanent damage to skin,
eyes, and respiratory tract and other symptoms are caused upon skin contact, inhalation of vapour, or ingestion. The onus is on the State Pollution Control Boards, which are responsible for the handling and management of hazardous waste, to ensure that environmental exposure to this toxic chemical is eliminated. The imperative is to reduce the amount of mercury that goes into CFLS through standards and regulatory controls and enforce the principle of extended producer responsibility for the collection and disposal of waste. This cannot be achieved without the active involvement of municipal authorities, manufacturers, and the trade. The way forward would be to provide a financial incentive to consumers for turning in old mercury lamps of all types, particularly conventional fluorescent tube lights and CFLS, and to ensure their scientific disposal through a network of authorised recyclers. Such a system can succeed because there is greater awareness of negative externalities among consumers today. For instance, shoppers are willing to pay extra for plastic bags as required by the new Environment Ministry rules; many use their own bags. In the case of used light bulbs, consumers stand to gain if the rewards-based system is introduced. Recycling mercury lamps should be an environmental priority.
U’grads protest against attack on Jaffna colleagues
October 28, 2011, 9:29 pm
...Students will be given adequate protection to carry on their studies – Jaffna SF HQ
by Dasun Edirisinghe
Undergraduates of the Ruhuna University protested yesterday against alleged attacks on Jaffna university students during the last few weeks.
Convener of the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) Sanjeewa Bandara told The Island that a victim was still warded at the Jaffna teaching hospital with severe head injuries.Members of Students’ Council of the Ruhuna University marched to the university’s main gate, where they staged a demonstration for two hours.
Protesters carried placards with slogans such as ‘Stop violence against students,’ ‘Military is responsible for attacks on Jaffna university students’. They also hoisted black flags in the university premises.
"Two students of the Jaffna university were attacked by an unidentified gang on Oct. 13," Bandara said adding that when they protested against the attack the president of the students council had also been attacked on Oct. 25 night.
Bandara said that there were 55,000 military personnel deployed in the Jaffna peninsula, but they had failed to prevent attacks on students.
Security Forces Headquarters in Jaffna, however, denied students’ allegations.
Jaffna SF commander Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe said that several outsiders bent on disrupting the university had been sighted near the campus during the last few weeks.
The Jaffna SF Headquarters was always prepared to come forward to look after the security and other needs of the people and would definitely help the Police to maintain peace and harmony, the Jaffna SF Commander said.
"Students will be given adequate protection to carry on their studies uninterrupted and no anti-social forces will be allowed to disturb the education of Jaffna students who suffered for many years due to absence of peace," Ma. Gen. Hathurusinghe said.
SSP Luxman Wijerathne said that investigations were on and those responsible for the alleged attacks on students would be brought to justice.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Privatizing Education – There are many reasons to believe that the present strategy will fail
By Professor Vijaya Kumar -
Professor Vijaya Kumar
It is generally accepted that private universities have helped improve education in developed countries like the United States. What is not often emphasized is that most of them are “not for profit” Universities
Sri Lanka has failed to invest adequately on education with public expenditure on education being slightly less than the 2.4% of GDP spent by Bangladesh and the 3.1% by India and much less than the 4.3% spent by Thailand and 7% spent by Malaysia. The problem is made even more acute because while most of these countries make in addition substantial private investments in education, Sri Lanka’s policy has been to discourage private investment in education.
Government should be urged to greatly increase its investment in education. It was encouraging to note that one of the demands during the recent University pay dispute was to increase investment in education to 6% of GDP. At primary and secondary levels, there must be a serious attempt to substantially improve schools catering to the needs of the rural poor and address imbalances in human resources by substantially increasing salaries and privileges of teachers willing to work in these difficult areas. There is no other way of improving access to Mathematics, English and IT training in the rural sector, although this may be resisted by the highly politicized largely incompetent educational system.
Having failed to invest in education, the government is now pointing to deficiencies in the sector to emphasize the need to promote private investment in education. Issues concerning the South Asia Institute of Technology and Medicine, a rather odd name for a private medical university highlight the problems many of our neighbours have had to face when opening up the field to private education. While agreeing that the introduction of private sector education may provide enhanced opportunities for Sri Lankan children in tertiary education, there are many reasons to believe that the present strategy will fail, simply because there is no mechanism in place to ensure quality, proper admission procedures and reasonable fees. It is always difficult to ensure fairness in private education. Strategies include providing a third of the places on scholarship by increasing fees by 50% and fairer systems of admission for both categories which rely exclusively on the A/L merit list have rarely succeeded.
It is generally accepted that private universities have helped improve education in developed countries like the United States. What is not often emphasized is that most of them are “not for profit” Universities which have become prestigious because all profits are used to improve the University, unlike the highly profitable business ventures masquerading as educational initiatives in Sri Lanka both at international school and tertiary education level. Although India has seen big business houses like Tata and Birla establishing research institutions and postgraduate Universities run by the state sector with minimum interference, we are yet to see similar initiatives in Sri Lanka.
The sad experience in our region has been that very few private Universities initiate courses other than in the highly profitable fields of medicine, information technology and business studies although national development strategies require investment in engineering and science. Many issues should be sorted out before initiating a pro-private education policy and before that it is vital for government to convince people that it is truly interested in improving education in the country by enhancing investment in the state sector and correcting the present injustice in the system.
*Vijaya Kumar is senior Professor of chemistry at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He also a senior member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. This article provided by Anik Pituwa , the left platform.
Faster-than-light neutrino experiment to be run again
The neutrinos are fired deep under the Italian Apennines to the Gran Sasso lab Scientists who announced that sub-atomic particles might be able to travel faster than light are to rerun their experiment in a different way.
This will address criticisms and allow the physicists to shore up their analysis as much as possible before submitting it for publication.Dr Sergio Bertolucci said it was vital not to "fool around" given the staggering implications of the result.
So they are doing all they can to rule out more pedestrian explanations.
Physicists working on the Opera experiment announced the perplexing findings last month.
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern (the home of the Large Hadron Collider) in Geneva toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away in Italy seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second earlier than light would have.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Prof Matt Strassler Rutgers UniversityIt's like sending a series of loud and isolated clicks instead of a long blast on a horn”
The speed of light is widely regarded as the Universe's ultimate velocity limit. Outlined first by James Clerk Maxwell and then by Albert Einstein in his theory of special relativity, much of modern physics relies on the idea that nothing can travel faster than light.
For many, the most comforting explanation is that some repeated "systematic error" has so far eluded the experimenters.Since September, more than 80 scientific papers about the finding have been posted to the arXiv pre-print server. Most propose theoretical solutions for the observation; a few claim to find problems.
Dr Bertolucci, the director of research at Cern, told BBC News: "In the last few days we have started to send a different time structure of the beam to Gran Sasso.
"This will allow Opera to repeat the measurement, removing some of the possible systematics."
The neutrinos that emerge at Gran Sasso start off as a beam of proton particles at Cern. Through a series of complex interactions, neutrino particles are generated from this beam and stream through the Earth's crust to Italy.
The neutrinos showed up 60 nanoseconds (60 billionths of a second) earlier than light would have over the same distance.
However, the time measurement is not direct; the researchers cannot know how long it took an individual neutrino to travel from Switzerland to Italy.
Cern's director of research says the new experimental design will be more efficient But some physicists say that any wrong assumptions made when relating these data sets could produce a misleading result.
This should be addressed by the new measurements, in which protons are sent in a series of short bursts - lasting just one or two nanoseconds, thousands of times shorter - with a large gap (roughly 500 nanoseconds) in between each burst.
This system, says Dr Bertolucci, is more efficient: "For every neutrino event at Gran Sasso, you can connect it unambiguously with the batch of protons at Cern," he explained.
Clicking in Physicist Matt Strassler, who raised concerns about the original methods, welcomed the new experimental design.
Writing on his blog, Prof Strassler, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, said: "It's like sending a series of loud and isolated clicks instead of a long blast on a horn; in the latter case you have to figure out exactly when the horn starts and stops, but in the former you just hear each click and then it's already over."
Einstein's relativity theory holds that nothing can exceed the speed of light One of the main challenges to the collaboration's work comes from Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow and his Boston University colleague Andrew Cohen.
In a recent paper, the physicists argue that if neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light, they would rapidly lose energy, depleting the beam of more energetic particles. This phenomenon was not seen by the Opera experiment.
Cross checks Dr Bertolucci called this study "elegant", but added: "An experimentalist has to prove that a measurement is either right or wrong. If you interpret every new measurement with older theories, you will never get a new theory.
"More than a century ago, Michelson and Morley measured the speed of light in the direction Earth was moving and in the opposite direction. They found the speed was equal in both directions."
This result helped to spur the development of the radical new theory of special relativity.
"If they had interpreted it using classical, Newtonian theory they would never have published," said Dr Bertolucci.
Next year, teams working on two other Gran Sasso experiments - Borexino and Icarus - will begin independent cross-checks of Opera's results.
The US Minos experiment and Japan's T2K experiment will also test the observations. It is likely to be several months before they report back.
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
GMOA to work out its own protocol for doctors
The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) said yesterday it would compile its own report on the controversial private medical college in Malabe and would introduce a protocol on the minimum standards required to practice medicine in Sri Lanka.GMOA spokesman Dr. Upul Gunasekara said the protocol would be based on guidelines established by the World Health Organisation and Indian medical standards. He said the GMOA report would be out before the Health Ministry’s five member committee report which was due next month.
GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe said the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) had not adhered to the conditions in the gazette notification issued in August this year and that the gazette notification did not directly stipulate the exact time duration by which some of the conditions needed to be fulfilled.
He said one month after the gazette notice was issued SAITM was expected to submit information on the recruitment of appropriate academic and administrative staff, information on the corporate plan for the next five years as well as the deed of trust relating to the establishment of SAITM.
“We have reason to believe that none of these requirements have been fulfilled by the institution,” Dr. Marasinghe said.
Dr. Gunesekara said several parents had made complaints to the GMOA and that all doctors who had enrolled their children at SAITM had taken them out of the private institution.
Dr. Marasinghe alleged that the institution was not affiliated to the Russian Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy and that two institutions instead have shared an agreement and alleged that based on the agreement students will be transferred to Russia through a student exchange programme. He said that the parents have not received receipts for the payments made to the institution.“We tried contacting the Russian university over the phone, by email and every other way possible but that have not been reachable,” he said and added that the Education Ministry, Higher Education Ministry, Justice Ministry, Defence Ministry and Finance Ministry should investigate the matter. (By Olindhi Jayasundere)
GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe said the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) had not adhered to the conditions in the gazette notification issued in August this year and that the gazette notification did not directly stipulate the exact time duration by which some of the conditions needed to be fulfilled.
He said one month after the gazette notice was issued SAITM was expected to submit information on the recruitment of appropriate academic and administrative staff, information on the corporate plan for the next five years as well as the deed of trust relating to the establishment of SAITM.
“We have reason to believe that none of these requirements have been fulfilled by the institution,” Dr. Marasinghe said.
Dr. Gunesekara said several parents had made complaints to the GMOA and that all doctors who had enrolled their children at SAITM had taken them out of the private institution.
Dr. Marasinghe alleged that the institution was not affiliated to the Russian Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy and that two institutions instead have shared an agreement and alleged that based on the agreement students will be transferred to Russia through a student exchange programme. He said that the parents have not received receipts for the payments made to the institution.“We tried contacting the Russian university over the phone, by email and every other way possible but that have not been reachable,” he said and added that the Education Ministry, Higher Education Ministry, Justice Ministry, Defence Ministry and Finance Ministry should investigate the matter. (By Olindhi Jayasundere)
Published online 20 October 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.607
News: Explainer
Different method, same result: global warming is real
Independent analysis confirms earlier results but aims for greater transparency.
Richard Muller led the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group's review of global climate data.Dan Tuffs/Getty ImagesWhat is the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study?
Until now, instrumental temperature records dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century have been compiled by three main research groups: NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Greenbelt, Maryland; the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington DC; and a collaboration between Britain's Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. All three records were developed in different ways, using separate, but overlapping, sets of data. By and large, all three studies line up fairly well as they document rising temperatures, particularly the sharp spike in recent decades, but that hasn't halted criticism from climate sceptics regarding the quality of the data and the rigor of the analysis.
What was the research team's goal, and did they achieve it?
Muller says he listened to the sceptics and decided that an independent analysis was in order. He and his team decided to tackle the temperature record independently, on the basis of first principles. They say their results line up with previously published studies and suggest that the average global land temperature has risen by roughly 0.9 °C since the 1950s.
Muller says he is surprised at how well the findings line up with previous analyses, which he takes as evidence that the various scientific teams working on these data did indeed go about their work "in a truly unbiased manner".
What did the team do differently?
The Berkeley researchers developed their own statistical methods so that they could use data from virtually all of the temperature stations on land — some 39,000 in all — whereas the other research groups relied on subsets of data from several thousand sites to build their records. This meant that they also had to figure out ways to handle shorter temperature records from instruments or stations where the record was interrupted.
Muller and his team also used a different approach to analysing the data. Scientists working on the earlier studies adjusted raw data to account for differences in the time of day when readings were made, for example, or for higher temperatures caused by the urban heat island effect, in which cities tend to be warmer than natural landscapes. Muller says his team included the raw data in its analysis and then applied standard statistical techniques to remove outliers.
Is there an advantage to tackling the problem this way?
The team claims that this method is more transparent than those used by the other groups. And it may be true that this kind of analysis could make it easier for outside groups to reproduce and analyse the study.
Has the study been peer-reviewed?
Not yet, which is a common criticism among many scientists who were already convinced that the earlier analyses were solid. The Berkeley team is preparing to submit four papers to the Journal of Geophysical Research for peer review. One paper describes the method and how it was applied to the larger temperature record. Another discusses the various methods for dealing with known problems and biases in the temperature record. A third focuses on the urban heat island effect and a fourth looks specifically at temperature stations that have been labelled as problematic by sceptics.
Is the latest study likely to win over any sceptics?
It's too early to tell what kind of effect the report will have, but there are already signs of scepticism among the sceptics. Nonetheless, Steve McIntyre, who runs the sceptic blog Climate Audit, said in an interview that the team deserves credit for going back to the primary data and doing the work. Although he hasn't gone through the papers in detail, he is already questioning the results reported by the Berkeley team regarding the questionable research stations and the urban heat island effect. McIntyre, a statistician, says he has already run a preliminary analysis and was unable to reproduce the results reported by Muller and his crew.
What comes next?
Now we wait to see how the peer-review process plays out. Meanwhile, the Berkeley team will post a complete file of the temperature record on its website by the end of this week. "Previously, the data were spread over 15 different databases with almost as many different formats, and a great deal of overlap," Muller says. "I would like to think that we are opening this field up to a much larger community by reducing the barrier to entry."
Students leaving Malabe PMC – GMOA
It’s only a false rumour - Dr. Fernando
October 27, 2011, 10:32 pmBy Don Asoka Wijewardena
The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) yesterday accused the South Asian Institute of Technology and Management (SAITM) of cheating a large number of students and their parents.
GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Upul Gunasekera said some parents had sought the GMOA’s help to get refunds and the GMOA in turn had requested the Ministries of Health, Defence, Justice and Finance to help the disgruntled parents get their refunds.
Speaking to the media, at the GMOA head office yesterday, Dr. Gunasekera said that the gazette notification 1721/19 of 30. 8. 211 was questionable. Although a month had elapsed, the requirements stipulated had not been fulfilled. It was not clear whether the degree awarding status was provisional or permanent.
Dr. Gunasekera said though the Malabe medical school did not have clinical training facilities, it had announced that it had access to two private hospitals for clinical training. The SAITM management had not even informed the parents of the students where clinical training would be done.
It was the right of every patient, admitted either to a private hospital or State-run hospital, to be aware whether they were subject to examination by medical students and their informed consent should be obtained for that purpose, Dr. Gunasekera said claiming that no receipts had been issued to parents who had made payments to the Malabe private medical college.
GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe said that it had been revealed in newspapers that some students who had enrolled at the Malabe medical school had not passed the GCE A/L. The GMOA would be compelled to request the UGC and all other relevant authorities to inquire into that matter urgently, he said.
Contacted for comment, Malabe Private Medical School Director Dr. Neville Fernando dismissed all allegations levelled by the GMOA as baseless. No parent had sought to withdraw students, he insisted. Parents were not supposed to pay direct to the school. They were advised to pay the school through a bank. Once parents made payments the Banks would issue them with receipts, he said.
Dr. Fernanado added that he had invited all GMOA office bearers to have a discussion on the issue, but there had been no positive response. It was not compulsory for any medical student to go to Russia to complete his or her final examination. Any student after successful completion of four years would be able to sit the final examination. The Malabe medical school would issue a recognized MBBS degree, Dr. Fernando said.
Several rival organisations had, Dr. Fernando said, launched a mud-slinging campaigns against the Malabe medical school. His medical school conducted its affairs in a very transparent manner, he said inviting the GMOA and other critics to have a dialogue without spreading false rumours.
‘UGC delaying our payments’– FUTA
There were far more pressing problems – UGC Chairman
October 27, 2011, 10:26 pmby Dasun Edirisinghe
University teachers are likely to go on the warpath again after two months of silence on their salaries issue. The government’s delay ito increase the allowances for internal examinations, visiting lecturers, administrative work and postgraduate supervision has irked the teachers.
President of the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri blamed the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the delay.
"Our demand is to have these allowances increased five fold as they had not been increased for a last 20 years," he said.
Dr. Devasiri said that the committee, appointed by the Higher Education Ministry, comprising representatives from the UGC, FUTA and the ministry also recommended that the allowances be increased.
But, the UGC was still delaying it, he said.
"At a recent meeting, the Treasury too agreed to increase those allowances, but UGC wants to appoint another committee to increase it," the FUTA Chairman said.
Citing some examples, Dr. Devasiris said that the visiting lecturer allowance was still Rs. 500 per lecture. If some teacher went to Anuradhapura for a lecture how could he/she afford the other costs? He asked
University teachers launched their trade union action by withdrawing from the volunteer posts they held three months ago and they suspended it following a ministry assurance to solve it immediately.
Dr. Devasiri warned that if the government did not take immediate action they could revive it at any time.
Contacted for comment, Chairman of the UGC Prof Gamini Samaranayake said that the issue at hand was not worthy of comment.
He added that there are many other issues in universities to be reported in newspapers rather than the salary and allowances issues of the teachers.
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