JVP dissident undergrad defy closure order

J’pura varsity closed

January 8, 2012, 9:16 pm , The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

University of Sri Jayewardenepura has been closed indefinitely from yesterday except Faculties of Medical Sciences and Graduate Studies.

Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences, Applied Sciences and Management and Commerce closed and students were asked to vacate hostels within two hours.

University sources said that the university administration had to close those three faculties to prevent a further intensification of tensions after the bomb attack on the statue erected in memory of fallen student leaders in the early hours of last Thursday by an unidentified group.

University administration and students accuse each other of being responsible for the attack.

Undergraduates however want the immediate re-opening of the university and denied there being any tense situation within the university premises.

Addressing the media opposite the university’s main gate, representative of the students, Kumbullewe Chandananda thera said that they would continue their protest until all those responsible for the attack on the statue were arrested and Vice Chancellor Dr. N. L. A. Karunaratne was removed from his post.

He said that they received the notice of closing the university at 6.45am in the morning and no reason was given for the closure of the university in the notice signed by the VC.

"We were asked to vacate the university premises within two hours," Chandananda thera said asking how the undergraduates, especially females could vacate within two hours as most of them came from remote areas.

He said that their main demands were removal of VC and security guards deployed there from the Defence Ministry’s Rakna Lanka firm.

A Group of JVP dissident led IUSF undergraduates defying the order to vacate continued to hold a ‘satyagraha’ opposite the Sumangala building of the university up to the time of going to press last night.

GMOA on warpath over docs being charged for repeat exams

January 8, 2012, 9:17 pm , The Island.

By Don Asoka Wijewardena

Controversy surrounds a decision by the Post- Graduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) to charge Rs. 190,000 and Rs. 140,000 from 30 doctors sitting the Oncology Part 1 and Part 2 of the Doctor of Medicine (MD) repeat examination, to cover accommodation, air fare etc of foreign examiners who will come from Australia and the United Kingdom.

The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) would meet Secretary to the Health Ministry over this issue today. The GMOA would not hesitate to take a strong Trade Union action, unless the Ministry intervened to sort out the issue immediately, GMOA General Secretary Dr. Chandika Epitakaduwa told The Island.

Dr. Epitakaduwa said that the PGIM had taken an unjust decision to charge unreasonable examination fees from all doctors who had applied for the Oncology part 1 and part 2. He said the GMOA was aware that the University Grants Commission (UGC) had issued guidelines to the PGIM on the examination fees. "Why should doctors doing their post-graduate studies pay such huge sums? The UGC and the Health Ministry should bear the cost of having foreign examiners here and we feel that PGIM is trying to exploit doctors," Dr. Epitakaduwa said.

FUTA vows to stop private university bill

January 8, 2012, 9:40 pm

by Dasun Edirisinghe, The Island.

Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) yesterday vowed to stop the introduction of an Act to enable the setting up of private universities here and that would be the main demand of their token strike scheduled for Jannuary 17, the Association said.

FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri said that according to the agreement entered with the Higher Education Ministry when they suspended their trade union action on July 21, 2011, the ministry promised to consult university teachers when taking decisions on the university sector in the future.

"A bill enabling private universities will be presented to Parliament shortly, but we haven’t been made aware of it so far," he said.

Expressing their deep opposition to the new bill, Dr. Devasiri said that they did not want education to be turned into a commodity in this country.

The establishing or facilitating private universities was not a task for the government while thousands of problems prevailed in the state universities.

Similarly, the senior academic said that on the second demand made by FUTA for a salary hike the Ministry agreed to solve it in three stages, but there too nothing had been met even by the budget 2012.

As per the consensus reached, the basic salary of university academics should be raised by 20% by January 2012, he said.

Dr. Devasiri said that the FUTA also requested the government to consider allocating approximately 6% of GDP to the education sector and that too was in the agreement.

"We will stage this token strike as the government has failed to respond to our gentle reminders so far," he said.

Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake said that the new bill would be presented not to establish private universities but to regularize existing private degree awarding institutions here. The cabinet of ministers had approved the bill titled Quality Assurance Accreditation and Qualification Framework Bill and it would be presented to parliament immediately after it received clearance from the Legal Draftsman’s Department.