Why some University Teachers are not Participating in the FUTA Strike Action

25 August 2012, 9:25 pm , dbsjeyaraj.com

University Of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

by Mahendra Gunawardane

Everybody knows by now that the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) has been leading an all out trade union action of university academics. However, it has not been so widely known that there are some lecturers who refused to join the strike action. Some of them continue to teach their students without interruption and I am one of them.

Many would find it difficult to understand why some of us stay away from the trade union action while many others are engaged in.

The FUTA and its followers may like to know why some lecturers do not follow them. However, unless they ask why, I have no appetite to give them explanations and I certainly refuse to be apologetic. Nevertheless, I am happy to clarify my stance to my students and to the public who pay my salary.

My students already know very well why I refused to participate in the TU action, as I have discussed the matter lengthily with them intermittently during the long hours of lectures I had with them during the past month or so. Hence, the aim of this piece is to justify my action in the eyes of general public. I would like to point out also that even if the TU action is over by the time this is published, the arguments would always be relevant.

Though many lecturers, including even some who are on strike seem to have no clear idea on what FUTA really is asking for, the demands can be roughly put into three categories.

One demand of FUTA is that there must be further salary increases surpassing the unprecedented pay hikes given since mid 2011 until now. FUTA also demands that the government must spend 6% of the GDP on education. The third demand says that the education sector must be left without any political interference and the decision making in the sector must be left to the lecturers.

I had pre-planned to keep the students in the university by informing them well ahead of the FUTA strike action that I will continue to conduct lectures. My students stayed en masse, and to do them justice for hanging about for a single series of lectures, I had to take whole days of lectures with them without restricting ourselves to scheduled one or two hours. To do so, what had I in mind about the FUTA demands?

Salary and allowances:

I and my comrades who refused to join the FUTA action do not suffer from any allergy to money. If there are further pay hikes, it would be good for us as well. However, my conscience does not allow me to stick to such demands so arrogantly at the expense of my students. To me, it is almost like taking them hostages.

Therefore, I do not feel like resorting to strike action demanding further pay hikes. Nevertheless, if a salary increase is given under an agreement between the government and the FUTA or as a humanitarian overture of the government or as a result of the government knuckling under FUTA pressure, I would accept the increment without any shilly-shallying.

I am sure those of my profession who are on strike will be hopping mad by reading this. How would they be able to stomach the idea of people like me reaping the benefits of their struggle while opposing it completely?

I also believe strongly that one has an obligatory social responsibility to join hands in achieving common good. However, here I have to give preference to serving my students instead of joining a TU action that victimizes the students. I am well aware of the fact that a delay in graduation even by a month or two will be enough to delay the progress in the lives of students by years.

As we have been given extraordinary salary increases during the 2011-2012 years, the priority in pay hikes should now be given to employees of other sectors. I reach that decision as a supposedly educated employee who must thus have a holistic view on the country, its economy and the people. That is another reason for me not to join demanding a pay hike for university lecturers at this juncture.

The FUTA asks for allowances to give private-school education for their children and also to keep their children in fee-levying hostels. I have the self-esteem not to be a part of such wicked demands, which would infuriate the general public if they come to know.

The FUTA also asks from the government to take university teaching as a 24hour job and to give allowances accordingly. This is pure insanity, I think.

6% of GDP on education:

The Gross Domestic Product of a country is the total market value of all the products and services produced in the country within a year. The FUTA demands that the government must spend a 6% of the GDP on education.

According to recent statistics, the government income is about 14% of the GDP while the government expenditure amounts up to about 24% of the GDP.

A 6% of GDP is therefore exceeds 40% of the government income. It is also about one fourth of the total expenditure. If one fourth is to be spent on education, only three fourth would be left to spend on all the other things, including health, agriculture, salaries, pensions, etc. and for development activities. The reader will immediately realize the difficulty in allocating a good one fourth of expenditure on education.

I am reluctant to brand the FUTA officials as morons who cannot understand such simple logic. Having said that, I must admit that the FUTA bigwigs have always been trying to duck the question, when pressed to explain how on earth a government can spend that much on education.

The fact of the matter is that this demand for 6% of GDP expenditure is not at all a reasonable demand that has been formulated after careful analysis by FUTA on the Sri Lankan education sector. Instead, it is a demand put forward initially by the JVP as an attempt to instigate student unrest, if possible, for another round. There are reasons to believe that this demand was something forced down the throats of other FUTA officials by those who are linked to the JVP.

Even those who knew that it would be futile to launch an all out strike on a policy issue like this had to join hands, not to be seen as less enthusiastic in the struggle and thrown out as a result. The source from where the influence comes alone is a good enough deterrent for people like me to refuse joining the TU action.

Sri Lanka has been known as a country that gives much emphasis on education. It is legendary that the education is totally free here. Free education and free health are main indicators of our success story. These are achievements appreciated in the world and achievements we all can be proud of. It has been recognized all over the world that the standards we maintain in our education system are among the highest.

In the majority of other countries, the parents have to cough up money for their children’s education and the expenditure on education is calculated taking that also into account. This is the reason for some countries to show higher figures of expenditure than us, even though their emphasis on education remains very poor. I am unable to disrupt the education of my students going merely by some theoretical calculations that tend to depend on many variables.

Decision making in the university sector and political interference:

Some people may not know the fact that all the decisions in the university education are taken by nobody else but university academics. The Vice Chancellor who administers the university, the Deans of the Faculties and Heads of the Departments are university lecturers by profession. In a university, there are various decision making bodies of widest possible participation such as curriculum development committees, boards of studies, faculty boards, the senate and the council and they all are composed of nobody else but university lecturers. Above a university there is this governing body called the University Grants Commission. Who are the decision making officials at the UGC? They are university lecturers.

So, it is very wrong to say that there is any influence of decision making, other than that of the university lecturers themselves.

Nevertheless, one should not forget the fact that it is the public who spend billions on university education. What the government does is the management of this expenditure. Those who manage the expenditure have every right to monitor how it is spent at the universities. If there are some irregularities, shortcomings or scope for improvements, it is the duty of the relevant minister to interfere promptly, instead of sitting idle wasting public money. The problem, if any, is the lack of interference.

In the United Kingdom, there is no government interference at all on the university sector and as a result, the universities have to find money by themselves for survival. They had to increase student fees by many folds, an action that caused the recent student riots. There has been abrupt closure of many departments of studies of which the graduates have no value in the job market.

The lecturers there are recruited not on permanent basis but on the basis of three year contracts. Unless you bring in money to the universities by doing research on the request of outside commercial establishments, the contract will not be renewed and you will be thrown out at the end of the third year. Many non academic officials are also taken in on temporary contracts.

The education sector in my country is much more stable than that. The main reason behind this is the colossal expenditure the government spends on education, increasing the amount every year.

As university lecturers who know these facts, I and some of my colleagues have pledged not to stay away from our supposed to be noble duty of teaching.

That said, I have to admit that we too would join any strike action if the government is going to ruin our education system. However, it is clearly evident that it is not what this government is up to. Instead, it has ventured into improving the education sector and to make it capable of even earning foreign exchange. This is the exact meaning of the declared aim of making the island the hub of knowledge in the region.

Knowing all these, I cannot refuse to teach my student and, therefore, together with my likeminded colleagues, I refuse to participate in the current trade union action.

(Mahendra Gunawardane is Head of the Department,Department of Microbiology, University of Kelaniya)

FUTA trade union action – past and present IV

August 28, 2012, 12:00 pm 

By Nalin de Silva

The Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) twenty years ago submitted the demands as they came from the sister unions to the authorities but the strike decision was taken by the latter and conveyed to the respective Vice Chancellors. FUTA was in effect representing the teachers’ associations that came under its umbrella, and neither FUTA nor the sister unions as they are called did not alter the demands in midstream. A compromise was made, if at all, in the final stages of the struggle in order to come to a settlement still winning a substantial salary increase and some other demands. FUTA at that time never approached politicians, political parties, students, student unions nor other trade unions outside the university sector. Nor did FUTA allow others, be they political parties or trade unions, to approach it. Thus, it convinced the authorities concerned that its struggles were not politically motivated.

However, what has happened over the last one and half years is exactly the opposite. The FUTA took the strike decision and then informed the sister unions. That was not the method that should have been adopted according to the constitution of the Federation. Last year a token strike was held and then the Heads of Department resigned as part of the trade union action initiated by FUTA. There had been discussions earlier and the trade union action was taken without waiting for a discussion that the President had offered. The main demand was the increase of salaries of academics and one of the basic assumptions FUTA used to justify its pay hike demand was that the university academics were a special category and the underlying impression given to the public was that they were the best qualified in the country, if not the crème de la crème of the intelligentsia. It was said that the university academics should have obtained a very good degree at the time of recruitment and that the promotion criteria were very stringent. The government should have conducted a survey to find out how many academics have first class degrees and or Ph. Ds. There are many with second class (upper) degrees not to mention those with second class (lower) degrees. Then there are so many without Ph. Ds and one could easily find out people with better qualifications in other professions. How many of those leading FUTA can claim that they have First or Second (Upper) degrees and Ph. Ds? I do not attach much value to these paper qualifications but I am mentioning them since FUTA is fond of repeating these arguments on stringent criteria for recruitment and promotion. As I have said already none of the teachers have been trained in teaching, though whatever said and done the Sri Lankan universities are teaching institutions. Have the university academics in Sri Lanka adopted any new methods in teaching? As for research, the less said, the better! Research is not confined to universities and one could find many research officers with Ph. D’s in institutes carrying out research in their respective fields. Has any academic come out with a new concept or a theory during the last fifty years?

One could say that it is due to the absence of quality people in the universities that no research of good quality is carried out. This is tallied with the argument on recruitment and retention and if the salaries are increased the universities would be able to recruit talented people. However one could again make a survey to find out how many "better" people joined the universities as senior academics after the substantial salary increase twenty years ago. Matured people join the universities as senior academics for different reasons ranging from a desire to come back to Sri Lanka if they are abroad, and if they are locally employed for the freedom that is enjoyed by university teachers and for the fact that the retirement age in the universities is sixty five. The university academics do not have much work, as I know through experience, and all these talks of the academics working round the clock for twenty four hours are only fairytales. It is wrong to pretend that the university academics are a special category but I am glad that the FUTA under criticism has been compelled to change its stance and say the academics are a special category in the sense that those in various services belong to special categories. There is nothing gained by having university academics categorised as a special service and I would say that in the final analysis it would be counterproductive.

The 6% of the GDP for education was introduced towards the tail end of the trade union action last year, and this year since FUTA could not justify its insistence on the increase of basic salaries they demanded the government step up expenditure on education. FUTA has ignored the increases in allowances granted during the last few years. With the allowances academics are the better paid category in the public sector of course apart from the income generating institutions such as banks. On top of these allowances the university academics are paid a certain percentage of the fee levying courses subject to a ceiling and often the lion’s share is claimed by the teachers. As a result bogus certificate and diploma courses at a level below that of the undergraduate have been introduced and some of these champions of free education could be seen teaching these courses in universities. Neither FUTA nor the so-called Inter University Student Federation has objected in a meaningful way to these courses. In any event, FUTA insists on an increase in the basic salary, which has to be decided by the Salaries and Cadre Commission. It is one thing to make demands and it is quite another to make compromises during the negotiations as no trade union with reasonable leaders would expect to win all what they want. However, FUTA cannot justify its demand for higher basic salaries. It is very clear that insistence on an increase in the basic salary that could not be justified is nothing but an attempt to destabilise the government.

When FUTA realized that they could not proceed with their demand for an increase in the basic salary it changed the tune; it demanded that 6% of the GDP be allocated for education. It was a good tactic by the anti government forces in the FUTA and very soon they were able to obtain the support of the teachers’ union that is mainly responsible for the Z score fiasco asking the UGC to adopt the so called Thattil. This particular trade union attacks the government and the relevant ministers though it is responsible for forcing the UGC to adopt the erroneous Thattil method. FUTA misled the public by claiming that according to a UNESCO report government has to spend 6% of the GDP on education. The relevant section of the UNESCO report is reproduced here. "Education should be given high priority, and not less than 6 percent of a country’s GNP should be devoted to education, as recommended by the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, chaired by Jacques Delors." Nowhere is it said that the government should spend 6% of the GDP on education. In Sri Lanka the total government expenditure is about 25% of the GDP, and it is obvious that this particular demand of FUTA cannot be met. The government has to spend on defence which I consider should get the first priority under present circumstances.

I would not say that the so-called Academic Spring with this 6% issue was introduced by somebody from the NGOs or anti-government lobby but it gave an opportunity for the latter to rally all the anti-government forces from Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thero to Anoma Fonseka against the government. It is not FUTA that organized last week’s rally; it lacks the ability to do so. Those who did so want the Academic Spring converted to another kind of Spring. It is expected that the government will enter into an agreement with FUTA this week, and I understand that the infamous FUTA demand that an allowance be granted to university teachers to educate two of their children in government or private schools will not be met.

FUTA strike will affect GCE A/L answer script evaluation

August 28, 2012, 10:15 pm , The Island

by Dasun Edirisinghe

University teachers who have been on strike for nearly two months claimed yesterday that there had been no response from the government for two weeks with regard to their agitation and their trade union action might affect the GCE (A/L) answer script evaluation process, which was scheduled to begin at the end of this month.

President of the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri told The Island that they would have to wait until Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundara returned from China.

"We have been informed by our coordinator that it the government would consider calling a meeting after Dr. Jayasundara’s returns," he said.

Dr. Devasiri said that they had not decided to end the strike even though the government had closed universities.

Higher Education Deputy Minister Nandimithra Ekanayake said that the government had held several rounds of discussions with university teachers, but in vain.

Minister Basil Rajapaksa had got involved in the discussions with university teachers and it would be sorted out shortly, he said.

"We request the university teachers to come and evaluate the GCE (A/L) answer scripts without putting innocent students into trouble," Ekanayake said.