Ragging would be stopped in all Universities - SB

Some university teachers blamed for supporting ragging

December 28, 2011, 9:51 pm , The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake lashed out at some sections of the university teachers who condemned the suspension of the Peradeniya University’s Students’ Council and Faculty Student Unions recently.

Addressing a media conference at the University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday, an angry minister said that the blame lay especially with the arts faculty teachers’ union which officially issued statements against the suspension.

"The university administration had to suspend all student unions in Peradeniya for organizing protests and conducting severe ragging on freshers," he said adding that "university teachers too must have been aware of severe ragging, but they didn’t condemn it."

As a result of inhuman ragging, a student who was severely tortured mentally by senior students, was still warded in the Kandy hospital and another student of Ruhuna University, had her spinal cord damaged during ragging, and was transferred to the Colombo National Hospital from the Matara hospital. She was still warded, Dissanayake said.

He said that the university teachers, including the President of the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA), blamed the government for banning student unions claiming that it was a human rights violation, "but why can’t they see the human rights violations which were committed by senior students on their first year colleagues?"

The students had organised a protest march from Peradeniya to Colombo and on the same day the so called student leaders assaulted Prof. Hennayake while he was conducting lectures. They assaulted even a security officer who attempted to prevent the attack, Dissanayake said.

"If a student is against ragging, he or she cannot go to the library and take part in cultural events. They are not allowed to go to the canteen too," Dissanayake said and asked why those teachers couldn’t see hundreds of students having their meals under trees or on benches due to senior students not permitting them to go to the canteen.

He said that they had stopped ragging in 15 out of 17 universities. There were incidents of ragging still in the Ruhuna and the Peradeniya Universities and that too would be stopped at any cost.

UGC Chairman Gamini Samaranayake said that according to the University Act they had the power to suspend Student Unions.