Open letter to VCS

September 24, 2012, 7:19 pm , The Island


The recent letter captioned above, by Mahesan Niranjan, Professor of Electronics and Computer Science at The University of Southampton, is praiseworthy, as he had given a very unbiased view of the situation prevailing in our universities and what prevails in foreign universities. One statement which caught my eye is" Secondly, you all, as heads of universities, must know the purpose of a university - that of creating and disseminating knowledge - that is best achieved in an environment of MINIMAL POLITICAL INTERFERENCE.

Just look at how universities in more successful environments operate. In our blessed Sri Lanka, all institutions are politicised, including universities, and appointments to the highly respected position of Vice-Chancellor is based on political favouritism as correctly stated by Prof. Mahesan Niranjan.

In another daily newspaper, a writer has questioned why the Chancellors of the respective universities, have not taken any steps to collectively represent their matters to the government, together with university lecturers. This is mainly due to appointing those with no knowledge of managerial and administrative skills. At least now the government should consider suitable, honest persons, to reduce tension in universities and to go a step further in the education sphere.

S. Weeraman,