Docs out for higher education secy.’s scalp

Delay in issuing amended gazette on PMCs

 

November 3, 2014, 9:58 pm

By Don Asoka Wijewardena

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) yesterday decided to write a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa seeking the removal of Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne, who had, it said, failed to issue the amended gazette notification on degree awarding status of non-state institutes.

GMOA Executive Committee member Dr. Narth Wijesuriya, addressing the media yesterday, alleged that the Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Navaratne had issued a gazette notification on August 22, 2013 recognising some non-state organisations as degree awarding Institutes.

Dr. Wijesuriya said Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) President Prof. Carlo Fonseka had requested President Mahinda Rajapaksa to instruct Higher Education Ministry Secretary Navarathne to amend the gazette notification. The President had subsequently instructed Dr. Navaratne to cancel the notification issued on August 22, 2013 and issue another one. But, Dr. Navaratne had not carried out the presidential order, the GMOA Executive Committee member said.

Dr. Jayantha Navaratne, contacted for comment, said that President Rajapaksa had instructed him to cancel the gazette notification issued on August 22, 2013. He had referred the amended draft to the Legal Draftsman. It would take some time because the Ministry had to examine it in relation to other fields such as engineering and architecture. As soon as he got the Draft from the Legal Draftsman he would issue a special gazette notification, he said.

SLMC President Prof. Carlo Fonseka said that in accordance with the provisions of the Sri Lanka Medical Ordinance, no doctor could practise medicine without registration with the SLMC. If any private medical school complied with the SLMC guidelines it would have to be registered, he said.