Glimpses of the real university crisis

November 2, 2012, 8:14 pm


By Professor G. H. Peiris, The Island

(Continued from yesterday)

What all these add up to is that the case for a general salary increase to the entire community of university teachers is not very convincing, unless its capacity to blackmail the government more effectively than most other categories of workers is added to the weight of that case. There are many in this community that need and deserve a substantial pay hike. There are many who do not. Rajiva Wijesinghe’s analysis on ‘hours of work’ (referred to earlier in this paper) is of utmost relevance here although it reveals only a part of what goes on. In fact, the reality is much worse. In certain faculties at Peradeniya the convention is that teachers arrive at their work place between about 8 and 9 in the morning and remain there up to about 4 or 5 afternoon, regardless of the number of hours of formal teaching. In others, especially where the teachers are expected to spend much of their time at the library, there is no such regularity, even though only a very few are ever seen in the library – perhaps they have all their books at home. I have known teachers who loved to teach. A few of them routinely taught hours and hours, well into late evening, with no reward whatever other than the satisfaction of breeding competent graduates. I recollect a professor at the very apex of his profession who could have minted money in private practice, but lived frugally, rode to work on a Vespa, and took a break off his work at the university and the hospital only for a snack lunch from the Milk Bar at the entrance to the Peradeniya Gardens. They are the legends, adored by their former students. At the other extreme, I also know of a Peradeniya don who had a full-time private sector job in Colombo with a spacious office and support staff, and whose appearances at the university were few and far between. There were several I knew whose contribution to higher education was through private tutories and not the university. No need to go into other sordid details.

There must surely be at least the semblance of a link between work and pay. Admittedly, devising a system which would facilitate the targeting of higher salaries and other benefits on those who need and/or deserve is not easy. But certain steps could be taken in that direction.

On the basis of impressions (which obviously require verification) I am inclined to say that it is those in the middle grades of the university academic staff who need and deserve a substantial increase of their emoluments. That stratum consists largely of scholars who have been exposed to recent advances in their specialities. Those fresh from their probationary study leave tend to carry heavy loads of teaching, and also have the drive to engage in productive research. At the same time, it is they who face serious problems in respect of housing, children’s education and other essential needs. Since the intrinsic worth of the doctoral or masters degrees varies widely, a system should be devised to take into account the "value" of each such qualification (the type of research done, the source of the degree etc.) in the salary ‘placement’ which need not be at the bottom of the ‘Lecturer Grade’ scale. Again, there are certain loosely applied requirements for promotion from ‘Lecturer’ to ‘Senior Lecturer’ grade that should be made more rigorous, but with the promotion being made more rewarding to those who pass muster. In short, the university system must devise methods of rewarding exceptional merit. In certain fields of study the "merit promotion" system, supposedly based mainly on internal evaluation, has become a joke.

It is also possible to use ‘Housing’ for staff (and students) as a mechanism of targeting benefits within the university system in a meaningful manner and improving the quality of its education. It appears in retrospect that Peradeniya at inception was somewhat over ambitious in the way it attempted to cater to this need. The buildings in the less ‘landscaped’ campus backyards such as Mahakanda, Upper Hantane and North End could have been less ornate and more functional like, for example, those provided at the universities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore; and thus made to cater more effectively to an expanding demand which ought to have been foreseen. At other universities in Sri Lanka the housing need has been almost totally neglected. In the case of the universities located in the metropolitan area, providing a residence within easy access to the university (which is certainly within the capacity of the government) would, I think, be equivalent to raising the salary of those at the middle grades of the service by at least 50% (at prevailing levels of house rent and costs of commuting); and it would have an invigorating effect. This could be done if those in authority are less enamoured with under-utilised and over-ornate constructions ostensibly to beautify the city and to "serve the people". But both these objectives would be better served by reducing the need for large numbers from all over the country to come and crowd the city.

The existing provisions for an year’s sabbatical leave with pay and travel allowances at the end of seven years of service could be made more meaningful than at present. The large majority of university teachers are unable to make use of this privilege on account of their inability to find paid assignments at universities abroad. A few of them I know have hence resorted to the hilarious practice of getting their friends at other universities to invite them as ‘visiting professors’ and collecting, in addition to their normal salary, a salary from the university they ‘visit’. This is not what sabbatical leave is meant for. It is intended to facilitate the periodic exposure of our university teachers to the academic world outside and to thus upgrade their scholarly experiences. As a corrective measure it would be possible to device a system under which the option of shorter periods of overseas leave (not necessarily in the west), with substantially enhanced allowance (to levels adequate for the recipient to spend time at a good university abroad) is offered to teachers who qualify for their sabbatical leave. There is no doubt that host universities could be found without difficulty for those with reasonably good records of research and do not have to depend on payments from the host universities. And, some of the prospective hosts will offer reciprocal exchanges of scholars, leading sometimes to highly beneficial link programmes.

University Autonomy

The recent infamous ‘UGC Circular’, the gist of which is that Selection Committees for recruitment and promotion of university teachers should have two UGC (i.e. ministerial) appointees with veto powers is, arguably, the most blatant and insidious attempt hitherto made to pave the way for political control of university affairs. It represents a crude infringement of the only aspect of university autonomy that has hitherto remained largely (but not entirely) uncontaminated by political interventions. At one of the Selection Committees in which I served (before my retirement from university service in 2003) the telephone call from the President on behalf of one of the applicants came (it so happened) while the very same applicant was being interviewed. We listened with much appreciation to the Vice-Chancellor’s end of the conversation in the course of which he respectfully explained to the President that the selection is being done impartially by a committee in which no one has overriding authority. The unanimous decision of the committee was to disqualify the applicant in accordance with regulations pertaining to "canvassing" in such selection procedures. I still do not know whether what we did was right, because the rejected applicant was the best of the lot. If it is OK for Vice-Chancellors to be political appointees, what it wrong in appointing Assistant Lecturers on the same basis?

As everyone knows university governance in Sri Lanka has never been free of political interventions. Political control of university affairs through the exercise of powers over key appointments (and dismissals) in the university system – ‘National Council of Higher Education’ (1966-70), Vice-Chancellors (from the very beginning), ‘University Grants Commission (1978 onwards) and Councils of all universities (throughout) existed all along. Since 1966, all Vice-Chancellors (including certain activists of the ‘Friday Forum’ referred to above on whose scholarly credentials, I should hasten to add, there is not the slightest doubt) were appointed by politicians. And, I know of only one Vice-Chancellor who had the guts to resist the intense pressures for his removal following a change of regime. He told the government: sack me if you will, I won’t resign. The new government did not have the legal powers to sack, and he was spared. Moreover, even some of the most vociferous champions of university autonomy have hardly ever turned down offers from political leaders. For instance, there was fierce protest when M. J. Perera, the eminent ministerial appointee to the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ceylon arrived at Peradeniya in 1968. Within a few brief years several who had been at the forefront of that protest gladly accepted political appointments within and outside the university system – most of them picked not so much for the expertise they possessed but as reward for political support. This has been the case ever since. Here again, I know of one person who, when nominated to the Vice-Chancellorship with greater backing of the University Council than any other, stipulated in a memorandum submitted to the minister various conditions (pertaining mainly to university autonomy) under which he would, if offered, accept the post. Needless to say, no offer came his way.

My recollection is that it was on the eve of the parliamentary elections of 1971 that, for the first time, a large group of university teachers published (through purchased newspaper space) an individually signed ‘Appeal to Voters’ to support the oppositional coalition. The "appeal" itself was brief, but the list signatures and names was long and prominent. One cannot say whether the voters were swayed by the appeal. But we do know that the ‘coalition’, after its electoral victory, was swayed to give some of the dons the administrative posts which they asked for. Such appeals have, since that time, become a regular pre-election ritual. I have been told by a person whom I trust that a former Chairman of the UGC kept in his office drawer these ‘appeal to voters’ as ‘works of reference’ to guide him in matters such as appointments to posts in academic administration and nominations for fellowships and scholarships in the university system over which he was the final arbiter.

So, my point is that political interference in university affairs is, at least partly, a problem of the dons’ making. Politicians will always want to control everything. Over many years politicians of the parties in power have tended to treat the universities as a job bank for non-academic jobs; and most of the Vice-Chancellors readily accepted lists of persons already selected by their ministers for such appointments. And now, the minister wants to extend that power over academic appointments. That is no surprise. If, in the present instance, the minister insists on sending his nominees to Selection Committees, why don’t the deans and the dons boycott the committee sittings, and make an issue of it. They will, I am sure, have enough backing of the desired type (hopefully, not from politicians struggling to make their way back from political wilderness) to make the minister succumb.

Concluded