Editorial

Z-score and U-turns

June 29, 2012, 7:44 pm , the island

Ministers in charge of education and higher education are nursing their derriere following a humiliating pratfall at Hulftsdorp on Monday. They are bellowing empty rhetoric and trotting out ludicrous excuses to save face but the Z-score has manifestly boomeranged on them. Having defended the formula used for the 2011 GCE (A/L) examination Z-score calculation, in public and in Parliament, they cannot absolve themselves of the blame for its application and the attendant mess-up.

Minister Wimal Weerawansa's party, the National Freedom Front (NFF), not to be outdone by the Opposition which lost no time in hauling Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena and Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake over the coals, called for their resignation. Accusing them of having made a stinking mess of the education sector, NFF politburo member Piyasiri Wijenayake urged them to take responsibility for Z-score fiasco and step down forthwith.

Such calls are inconsequential as neither those who make them nor government ministers usually take them seriously, but Wijenayake's demand is of some significance as his party is a coalition partner of the ruling UPFA. His political derring-do may have gone down rather well but he was oblivious to the consequences of his utterances. It may not have occurred to him that his leader Minister Weerawansa was also bound by the so-called principle of collective Cabinet responsibility!

Minister Weerawansa made a vain attempt to control damage on Thursday. He argued at a public function that none of the government ministers were to be held responsible for the Z-score mess-up and the blame for it should be pinned solely on the experts who devised the formula at issue as well as the Examination Department bigwigs. But, no one––not even Wijenayake, we suppose––was convinced by Weerawansa's glib.

Minister Weerawansa chose to ignore the fact that the Education Minister and the Higher Education Minister had defended the Z-score formula to the hilt. He cut a very pathetic figure yet another time, trying to defend the indefensible.

Victory, they say, has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. What would have happened if the Supreme Court judgment had gone in favour of the UGC? The beleaguered ministers would have claimed the credit for preparing the Z-score immediately and the ferocious government propaganda hounds who turned tail and ran away on Monday would have torn their critics to shreds.

We hope the UGC experts and the Examination Department worthies will learn from their mistakes and be wary of pandering to the whims and fancies of their political masters who have no qualms about wriggling out of difficult situations at the expense of anyone else.

Minister Weerawansa's claim that the government big guns should not be held responsible for what the State officials and experts do is of special interest. If so, the government should not seek the credit or grab the limelight when officials and experts successfully carry out tasks assigned to them. Fair enough, eh? Will Weerawansa peddle the same argument as regards who should be given the credit for the country's successful war on terror?

When Minister Weerawansa says politicians should not be blamed for what their officials do, are we to gather that he is trying to have his political masters frothing at the mouth believe that he should not be held responsible for what an NFF official (Wijenayake) has said?

Pseudo-Marxists are notorious for espousing populist causes as a matter of expediency while riding piggyback on capitalists in power to enjoy perks and privileges. Minister Weerawansa is running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He has apparently reached a stage where he does not know whether he is running or hunting!

Dons asked to justify their clamour for more

June 29, 2012, 9:08 pm , the island

The Higher Education Ministry Secretary in a letter addressed to academic staff members of all universities yesterday said that the latter’s struggle for salary increases did not have the element of social justice, as during the last two years, the salaries of academic staff members had been increased by an average of 66 percent.

Education Secretary Dr Sunil Jayantha Navaratne says in his letter: "I request you to ask yourself how you could justify your demand for another salary hike so soon. During the years 2011 and 2012 a salary of a senior professor increased by 73.88 percent while a professor’s salary had been increased by 69.73 percent. Salaries of a senior lecturer and a lecturer had been increased by 61.13% and 53.39%. Generally all the salaries of academic staff members have been increased by an average of 66%.

"In addition the payments for preparing question papers of university students have been increased by 400 percent this year. The payment for evaluating question papers of internal students by university teachers too had been increased by 400% and those of post graduate students by 150 percent. The payment for conducting visiting lectures also had been increased 200 percent.

"The government has also increased the credit limit of loans provided to university teachers and these loans are provided at a very lower interest rate. The government had doubled the budgetary allocations for the higher education sector in the last five years, the letter says.

"Therefore, I request you not to fall praay to those in the academic community who are acting on hidden agendas to further their personal interests. It seems that the main objective of these rabble rousers is to lead the country towards anarchy and to weaken institutional capacity of the country’s university system. Taking into consideration the increases of salaries made in the last two years, I request you to consider how you could reason out to the society the social justice element in the ongoing struggle for more increments," the letter addressed to all academic members through the Vice Chancellors of universities said."