SB blames JVP for student leaders not completing degree courses

February 17, 2013, 10:07 pm , The Island


by Dasun Edirisinghe

Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake yesterday blamed the JVP for the failure of student union leaders to complete their degree courses after 1985.

Responding to the JVP’s statements attacking him, the angry minister said that the JVP and its breakaway Frontline Socialist Party, were getting innocent undergraduates to carry forward their bankrupt political ideologies.

"After 1985, most of those who led the Inter University Students’ Federation and other JVP affiliated students’ unions in universities countrywide have not completed their degree courses," he said.

Dissanayake said a majority of them were from very rural areas and were obstructing other students from entering universities.

"We too were student leaders, when we were in the university, but all of us completed our degrees successfilly," the minister said.

Naming some now prominent figures, such as minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera, Mahinda Wijesekera, Minister Reginold Cooray, Ministry Secretary Willie Gamage, former UGC Chief Prof. Gamini Samaranayake, Prof. Navaratne Bandara of the Peradeniya University, Students Affairs Director of the Higher Education Ministry Keerthi Mawellage and former examination commissioner general Anura Edirisinghe, he said that they had also engaged in politics and student union activities in the university, but they completed their degree courses and now serve the country.

He said that JVP affiliated student leaders did not complete their degrees and sacrificed their higher education to fulfill an unrealistic dream of the bankrupt political party.

Nimal blames tuition mafia for commercialisation of education

February 17, 2013, 9:25 pm , The Island

BY DON ASOKAWIJEWARDENA

Irrigation and Water Resources Management Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva claimed that the tuition mafia had totally commercialised the present educational system. Some teachers in government schools

Run off to tuition centres without attending to their school responsibilities, he said.

When a student passed an examination with distinction, the credit went to the teachers who taught the student. But there was no dispute over the fact that private tuition was necessary for a student who was weak in studies. If teachers had taught the students properly in all subjects, no private tuition would have been necessary, he said at the presentation of an award to Danuka Ravishan, who obtained the highest marks in mathematics, in the Badulla district, at the GCE A/L.

He pointed out that the people in the Uva province suffered from untold hardships during the imperialist rule. Everything was destroyed by them. Many young men over 18 were killed. After the Independence, not a single government had been able to develop the Uva province. The country’s poorest divisional secretariat called Redeemaliyadde was situated in the Badulla district, he said.

The people were under the impression that only the students attending Colombo schools could enter the universities, but even those studying at Badulla Dharamadutha had entered universities, Minister de Silva added.

He said that some fathers were enriching liquor bars. When their children failed the examinations, they kept blaming the teachers. The educational system should be job-oriented, because it was fundamental to the development of any nation, he said