Foreign University Bill in House soon

Foreign University Bill in House soon

Daily News 10/08/2011

Dinesh DE ALWIS

The much anticipated, Foreign University Bill would be presented to Parliament within the next two months after going through the Legal Draftsman.

Cabinet has sanctioned the Bill and it has been sent to the Legal Draftsman, Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne told the Daily News. "Legal drafts and translation of the Bill are currently under preparation and would be shortly presented to Parliament", he said.

The new Bill which regulates and monitors foreign universities has been titled "Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Qualification Framework Bill".

He further said that up to now the ministry has received applications from 10 universities expressing their interest to set up foreign universities in Sri Lanka.

Universities from USA, Japan, UK, Russia, China, India and Australia have shown a keen interest in setting up Medical, IT, Engineering and Management Universities in Sri Lanka.

Several institutions are already under construction and these universities will launch their academic activities once the Bill is passed.

Those universities are planning to set up universities in areas such as Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Puttalam he said.

Every year, around 10,000 students from Sri Lanka migrate to foreign countries spending over 12 billion.

The ministry has taken measures to offer local students 20 percent of the slots in those foreign universities.

J’pura VC under house arrest

Wednesday, 10 August 2011 14:30

By Lakna Paranamanna

The students of the Jayawardenapura University have taken the Vice Chancellor Dr. N. L. A. Karunaratne under house arrest a short while ago following a protest held at the university premises.

The students had been protesting against the VC’s decision on rejecting Mahapola scholarships and they are claiming they plan to hold the VC under house arrest until he decides to approve the scholarships.

The Mirihana police stated that several teams have been dispatched to the location after they were informed by the university about the situation. (Daily Mirror Online)

University teachers salary issue - FUTA demands appointment of salary rectification committee this week

August 9, 2011, 9:15 pm
Island


by Dasun Edirisinghe

University teachers, who suspended their trade union action demanding a salary hike, urged the Higher Education Ministry yesterday to appoint a committee to look into the matter, as promised, without further delay.

University teachers withdrew from the voluntary posts they held as a protest against the government’s delay in increasing their salaries and they suspended the trade union action on three promises being made by the authorities, out of which one has still not been honoured.

"Appointing a committee to find a long term solution to university teachers salaries is one of the promises given by the ministry and treasury officials, but it has yet to be appointed," President of the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri told The Island.

He said that the salary hike would have to be decided before the budget and therefore the committee had to be appointed immediately.

The committee would include representatives from the Higher Education Ministry, University Grants Commission (UGC), Treasury, National Salaries and Cadre Commission and four members from the FUTA, according to the agreement.

"It must be appointed within this week," Dr. Devasiri said adding they have already reminded the ministry to do so.

According to him, the ministry has promised to rectify the anomalies in the academic allowance and the UGC has already issued a circular to pay it with effect from July 01.

He said the third promise was to cancel a circular issued by the UGC preventing university dons from resigning from the voluntary posts held by them without giving three-months notice.

"The UGC Vice Chairman issued a circular cancelling the previous one, but we are still in doubt about its validity as the UGC Chairman had issued the previous circular," Dr. Devasiri said.

Secretary to the Higher Education Ministry Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne, when contacted for comment, said that they are in the process of appointing the committee.

"We will appoint it within this week," he said.