Suspension of strike only a truce; govt. must honour promises — FUTA
October 12, 2012, 10:36 pm
, The Island
by Dasun Edirisinghe
The Federation of University
Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) yesterday said that it had suspended its
three-month-long strike, believing that Economic Affair Minister Basil
Rajapaksa would keep his word.
Addressing a media
conference at the Open University, Nawala, FUTA President Dr. Nirmal
Ranjith Dewasiri said that Minister of Higher Education S. B.
Dissanayake should learn from Minister Rajapaksa’s positive
intervention.
"Minister Rajapaksa asked me to trust his word and I said we
could trust him," Dr. Dewasiri said, adding that now it was Minister Rajapaksa’s duty to honour his promise.
The
final round of talks between Minister Rajapaksa and FUTA was held on
Tuesday night after Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundera issued the
letter regarding salary increments. However, FUTA refrained from
attending the joint media conference with the government and did not
issue a joint statement on Thursday.
The FUTA membership
did not want to participate in the joint media conference and issue a
drafted joint statement. However, they could issue a revised joint
statement with the consent of the membership, Dr. Dewasiri said.
"Although we did not get anything immediately, the recognition of our demands by the government was our triumph," he said.
The
senior academic said that Dr. Jayasundera’s letter had promised to
increase salaries in a five-year structure starting from the November
budget.
"The FUTA membership is still on the warpath and waiting to see what they will get from the budget," he said.
Dr.
Dewasiri said that FUTA’s core demand was the allocation of 6 per cent
of the GDP for education and based on that demand the government had
approved a Cabinet note as the first step in the negotiations process to
increase government expenditure on education.
He said that
the Cabinet note was aimed at considering university academic staff a
special professional group and establishing a special committee to act
on the same, appointing a special presidential commission to make
recommendations on reforms relevant to the higher education sector,
safeguarding university autonomy and accepting the need to engage in a
fruitful dialogue with the university community on reforms related to
higher education.
An agreement had also been reached to
rescind the circulars obstructing positive activities of the university
academic community. Another agreement reached was on obtaining the
participation of faculty boards and Senates to determine the nature of
the leadership training programme for new students admitted to
universities, Dr. Dewasiri said.
"Furthermore, following the
discussions FUTA had with the Treasury Chief, both the government and
we agreed to honour the written assurance given by him on Tuesday," the
FUTA president said.
FUTA Vice President Ven. Dambara Amila
Thera said that their suspension of the strike was like a ceasefire
while waging a war and they would resume it anytime if the government
broke its promises
