By Natasha Fernando –
Natasha Fernando
Sri Lankan Universities according to the Ministry of Higher Education, Sri Lanka is ranked as illustrated in the table below. It is an extremely pathetic situation particularly since Sri Lanka is now a middle income country.
Lets face it! Our universities suck! Private universities with lower quality and tuition culture purport to be ranked higher than state universities because they are affiliated with a top 500 international universities. State universities are publicly funded and they should have better commitment to standards. Why are state universities ranked so low? How can international ranking of state universities be increased? What are the barriers for achieving this goal? I honestly do not know the answers. But I can attempt to answer this as a student in a student’s perspective. Let’s tackle the barriers first:
1. Ragging
The Inter University Students Federation aka Anthare is the major barrier to a fruitful student life. The ‘Anthare’ is a Marxist-lennist association of students controlled and guided by the left-wing of Sri Lanka. The only way for these backward-thinking political groups to gain electoral votes is to mobilize a bunch of students coming from economically deprived backgrounds and use them to promulgate disruptive political activities that don’t do much good to society.
During my first year in University I remember how I was ragged. Ragging happens right in front of the university administration building. This itself shows how arrogant these sadists are. The university administration waits for a favourable political climate to launch anti-ragging campaigns but not all the academics are on a united front. Recent news about the Peradeniya University Veterinary faculty shows the stance that some academics have about this issue. A professor had ragged a student to make him realize how ragging feels like which is all the more regrettable.
There are many academics who have come to influential positions from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Some of them are very supportive of the ISUF, because, in their opinion the ISUF is the only united front against privatization of state universities. They claim that they have thrived due to free education and it should not be abolished. Some of them have been ISUF activists in their heyday.
The real danger of ragging lies in how ragging is a mobilization method to create unrest and brainwash otherwise unassuming students to revolt against every government. There is not a single government in Sri Lanka that Anthare has not opposed. Before the JVP insurrections of 1987-1989 State Universities had academics who were research partners of Ivy Leagues and top universities in the world. Many of them migrated due to these insurrections resulting in a huge brain drain. This trend of brain drain is a continuing phenomenon to which the modern causes are manifold and ragging is just one of them.
There are a handful of these ISUF activists who have infiltrated the Open Universities of Sri Lanka and some of them ironically law students. Currently there are also plans according to hearsay to infiltrate the Sri Lanka Law College. The Bar association must be alert about such students entering the legal profession which is already over-crowded.
2. Politics
Sri Lankan Universities are known for openly advocating and canvassing for various political parties. For example: Kelaniya University through a survey predicted 53 per cent of the votes for President Mahinda Rajapaksa and 44 per cent for Common Opposition Candidate Maithripala Sirisena at 2015 presidential elections. Academics openly express their political views which is not that big a deal after all, since everyone is entitled to their own political opinions. However some find it difficult to keep politics separate from university academics. Certain departments hire probationary lecturers based on political opinions through which many or if not better competent ones are left out. This is absolutely ridiculous. It is the merits of the person in question that must be weighed not whether they ‘support devolution’ or ‘oppose devolution’. Many academics fight each other and this reflects on the grades of students. Inter-departmental fights resulting in talented students being victimized because academics cannot keep politics and personal ‘beef’ separate from doing their job.
3. Petty jealousies
In State Universities there are many students who come from a decent socio-economic background, went to a national or private school, speaks some English, dresses decently, also studies at a private university to increase chances of employment. There are also many who do not possess the same comforts which leads to petty jealousies. Some talented students have heart-breaking stories to tell about how they were treated in university by lecturers. Examples:
- Lecturers threatening students to withhold academic references when a student seeks to study post graduate studies in a foreign university [this happened to me in a private university quite sadly]
- Being bombarded with so many questions about how much they are paying for a course and wanting to know how much money your parents have
- Rejecting thesis proposals due to various unascertainable excuses
- Claiming a student’s piece of writing is not their own but plagiarized from elsewhere without proof or without evidence of using plagiarism detection software
- Threatening to fail students in return for sexual favours
Some lecturers are extremely reluctant to acknowledge that certain students are talented in their own right. Some academics simply cut off talented students if they pose a threat to their own jobs which is probably the most ridiculous insecurity within the state university education system. I’ve come across a probationary lecturer who migrated to Australia because the university staff mistreated her. She was a published researcher in a Sri Lankan Think Tank. If the university academics can get rid of these insecurities and petty jealousies such talent could have been retained in the country. This girl gave up her passion to pursue her university research degree where she toiled for four years due to mistreatment and travelled abroad to become an accountant [field entirely different from what she previously studied]. Students with a decent upbringing are now reluctant to attend state universities due to mismanagement, lack of professionalism and lecturers who simply rant about unnecessary things unrelated to the subject during lectures some even arrogant enough to swear in front of students. This is extremely pathetic. This is the sad state of affairs at Sri Lankan state universities.
Sri Lanka is much in need of educational reform which must be undertaken by an independent committee. More students should be encouraged from coming out and narrating their experiences to the general public.
*Natasha Fernando – Law student at University of London International Programmes.
dayal / February 16, 2017
before the substantial salary increase, academic positions were not attractive for talented graduates who preferred to migrate, most of the teaching task was done by inexperienced probationary lecturers who had to do post graduate studies
without which they were not confirmed or promoted.in social science/arts faculties young lecturers try to manage with their mother tongue which is impossible because all materials are available in english. few lecturers improve overtime and some lag behind until their retirement.students mostly depend on lecture notes and a few books available in their mother tongue.i have seen seen several masters’ dissertations quoting extensively from textbooks in mother tongue-they are not research studies at all. answer script are mere repetition or summary of lecture notes.best repetitors get honours degree. sometimes english medium classes are conducted in mother tongue after requesting the students to take down notes in english as the students are competent in english (that is why they were admitted).
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jim softy / February 16, 2017
I don’t agree with you.
First degree is taught with the text books. I don’t think you need much knowledge to that. Even in the west, some professors, read their decade old lecture note and ask the student to buy the new text book because, it is also a business.
first ask her to explain what does it means in each column that shows.How they decided the excellence all all those criteria.
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AJ / February 16, 2017
I don’t agree with you. The reason Sri Lanka is ranked low is educated people have left the country. [Edited out]
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Amarasiri / February 16, 2017
Natasha Fernando
RE: Dissecting The Reasons For Low International Ranking Of Sri Lankan State Universities – A Student’s Perspective
What is the cause and what are its effects and symptoms?
Is the cause related to the average IQ of Sri Lanka that is 79?. Assume that the standard deviation (SD) of the IQs is 15. Then with a Z score of 2, the Raw IQ score of the population is 109 for Sri Lanka. If we assume, for a first approximation, all the Sri Lankan university students have an IQ above 109, the “national Average”, you can do the same calculating for the other universities in the world and their Native IQs and the corresponding Z-score IQ.
For Singapore, with average National score of 108, the Z=2, IQ score is 138. The academic Ranking of University of Singapore is 83.
Then Plot The University ranking to the Z-Score IQ.
You are likely to find a decent correlation.
National IQ Scores – Country Rankings
The intelligence scores came from work carried out earlier this decade by Richard Lynn, a British psychologist, and Tatu Vanhanen, a Finnish political scientist, who analysed IQ studies from 113 countries, and from subsequent work by Jelte Wicherts, a Dutch psychologist.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/national_iq_scores_country_ranks.html
Perhaps you can do the same estimation for the Local universities, and use the A/L Scores, and see if there is a correlation.
So, where is the cause? n the IQ of the Native population? In the nurituin of the students and staff? In the Education etc.
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Binoj / February 17, 2017
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jim softy / February 16, 2017
Ragging is inferiority complex. If a Professor engaged in ragging at least for demonstration purposes, he should be fired. He is not worthy for a Teacher.
Did you check what criteria they use to grade these universities. I don’t know about the data you show. Otherwise, they use mostly the amount of money the university get for research, the number of papers published in peer reviewed journals etc., In that sense, I don’t think Sri lankan universities send that many papers to be published and they get that much private to engage in research.
Other than that, you need to think the extent of the success of the graduates came to foreign universities. My guess it it is very high. I say, just to get through the Sri lankan Adcanved Level is a big competition. But, I don’t know how much tuition classes affect the the number of students get through A/L. I hear, now everybody goes to tuition and the teacher ask them to go to tuition classes.
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AJ / February 16, 2017
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eldorado / February 16, 2017
Sri Lanka Universities Suck ! And Still the products of these sucking Universities are obstructing better ranked private UNIVERSITIES in the Country from progressing. WHY ? The reasons are obvious. These SOB’S who graduated from sucking Universities are frogs in a well and would not want better Graduates/ Doctors to come out of better Universities as the difference in the service/the commitment/ the performance/ the attitudes/ will be there for all to see.
The problem is our Govt hasn’t got the Balls to tell them to E….. off !
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Raj / February 16, 2017
Well said. Exactly my sentiments. A majority of SL graduates, particularly, Doctors, are self centered & think they are the cats whiskers. The ‘traditional’ ragging shows how depraved & even perverted they are & these are the professionals & intellectuals who are expected to take the country forward.
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Claus / February 16, 2017
@ Jim Softy
Not all first degrees in state universities are taught with the textbooks since I am a student myself. All the notes are straight from the internet and not all are from academic resources. students graduate with first degrees and in many cases with classes without a proper grasp of the basics. Problem is the language barrier even if standard textbooks are prescribed the lecturers are not well read. they are not well versed with standard texts and a majority will prefer not to read because of language barriers. However ELTU and other facilities are available for students to improve their English so i do not see why universities cannot prescribe standard textbooks for essential reading. It is a university and I am sure if they really want to improve quality of education they can obtain permission from authors to translate a textbook into sinhala which is within copyright laws so that Sinhala medium students can benefit. Language should not be a barrier for any student. There are many students in foreign universities studying in english having studied in thier mother tongue (which is not english). They study the language for a year before enrolling in the cause and nothing is preventing them from shining. University students and lecturers alike are a bunch of lazy bums.
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Nisa / February 16, 2017
There are so many reasons why our universities ranking very low when compare to better universities in the world.
Our profs and lecturers are frogs in the well.
There is no strong R&D culture.
There is no performance management to academic staff.
Very bad internal politics.
Interference of politicians.
Very old thinking and there is no innovative approach.
We need to do a thorough and extensive research to analyse this cancerous situation in our universities and it needs an intensive chemotherapy treatment to fix this cancer.
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anonymous / February 16, 2017
Dear Natasha my child,
“I honestly do not know the answers”
I do have an answer but it will never bear fruit as the 99.9% of the world’s human population are full of ‘Greed,Hatred and Delusion’. If only we decide to adopt the style of teachings and discipline of the golden era of ‘Nalanda and the Disapamocks’, spreading ‘Loving kindness accompanied by Metta, Karuna, Muditha & Upekkha’, there lies a wee bit of hope I assume.
Education is not the solution for everything:
“Wisdom does not come from studying great theories or philosophes, but OBSERVING the ordinary”
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max / February 16, 2017
anonymous, Pls accept my salute for what you have said!
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jim softy / February 16, 2017
I see primary education is more important than the University education.
It is only in your mind.
YOu never get to practice exactly what you learn in the university. what you learned in the university becomes more or less concepts. Once you go outdie, you need to apply those. that is also if you get the opportunity.
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AJ / February 16, 2017
So why didn’t you get primary education ?
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Sunil Dahanayake / February 16, 2017
Dear Writer,
Have you ever been to a Sri Lankan State University?
Therefore, please do not write the things that you do not know?
Even though that Sri Lankan universities rank low among the world best universities, Sri Lankan State Universities produce excellent professionals and researchers.
I my self graduated from a State University in Sri Lanka, I managed to complete my postgraduate education in two leading universities in the developed countries. Sri Lankan State Universities are producing world class competitive graduates with a small amount of government resources. I am also very proud about the Sri Lankan State University students, graduates and the teachers who study and work under difficult economic conditions.
Sri Lankan State University system is not getting developed or not getting high rankings among the world best universities due to the main fact that the Sri Lankan government is not putting adequate research money in to the Sri Lankan State Universities.
Therefore, please do not write the things that you do not know (Nodanna Bambu).
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Pervy Yoda / February 16, 2017
Dear Natasha:
Thanks for the poorly researched and weakly constructed article. The rankings are based “on their web presence and impact” (http://www.webometrics.info/en/Methodology) and the original aim of this ranking exercise is “promote academic web presence” – so in essence the poor rankings is a matter of poor interweb marketing by the universities! Next time do at least a simple secondary research without building an non-validated, biased article and inserting a statistical reference that has no thematic or contextual link to the arguments you are making.
There are a number of problems at local HEIs and I’m not here to defend the practice of ragging or the IUSF. But unfortunately the key problem remains the low funding by the government. Did you try finding out the share of GDP the GOSL spends on tertiary education – before you wrote the line “State universities are publicly funded and they should have better commitment to standards” and as such the low level of facilities and no. of difficulties students have to go through to get their studies done.
I feel sorry for the bad experience you have had but one out of the two you mentioned happened at a private university?!?! Sorry, but I am unable to follow your train of thought.
Student politics is not a feature endemic to our country – it is found world over – even in esteemed institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge – where they play an important role developing future leaders. Did you even bother to research the no. of local and international politicians who started their political life from university student unions?
If your interest is understanding the nature and precursor to the continuing rag tradition, I recommend you take a much deeper analysis than rehashing vague statements.
On another note, the university system is the same world over – you do find good lecturers just as you are likely to find sadistic ones. And remember academia is not a bed of roses (or a tuition class), it is a testing ground – the system and practices of evaluation, supervision and rewarding are based on knowledge generation (the primary duty of academics) as much as knowledge dissemination. Local HEIs do not have it easy – but to blatantly say that they suck is seemingly juvenile rage venting from your end.
Your intentions in penning this piece of mangled verbal hogwash might be personal and honest, but your arguments lack any concrete support – “Students with a decent upbringing are now reluctant to attend state universities due to mismanagement, lack of professionalism and lecturers who simply rant about unnecessary things unrelated to the subject during lectures some even arrogant enough to swear in front of students” – who are they? where are the numbers?
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Beca / February 16, 2017
@sunil Dahanayake
Please visit state universities today and see for yourself that the percentage of academics who have studied post graduate in top 100 universities are very less. Most have studied for BA MA and PHD in Sri Lanka and very few are published internationally. I admit there are top class researchers from state universities like yourself, manique gunesekere, gehan gunetilleke and much more. But you must visit certain faculties and departments. Yes there are a few odd characters who swear infront of students. Also note there is no complaint procedure or evaluation system. Lecturers take pride in not being evaluated publicly claiming they hold a special position of power. Sunil dahanayake are you currently a lecturer in a state university? Have you used your expertise to develop lankan curriculums? What is the service you are rendering to the current students in the state university you studied. Have you provided potential students from your department with similar opportunities that you have? If you cant answer these questions please consider re-visiting your values.
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Lucy Q / February 16, 2017
@ Natasha
Even though I do not completely agree with everything you mentioned here, I too think that ragging is one of the major reasons for the present pathetic condition of all state universities in Sri Lanka. I have my own doubts whether most of the graduates of humanities and social sciences at least have read 10 books at the time of their graduation. They waste their precious time harassing others both physically and mentally ad find no time to read books. They pass their exams just by memorizing lecture notes. Most of the undergraduates who pretends to be Marxists have not even read a single text written by Marx. This situation is quite pathetic and it is very sad to see how university authorities and majority of academics who have a say in universities turn blind eye towards violence that take place in universities under the fancy title of ‘navaka anurupitha wadasatahana’. I find many factual errors in your article which proves that you do not have first hand experience in a state university in Sri Lanka, but I too believe that our entire university system is being deteriorated day by day due to barbaric ragging which curbs the freedom of students.
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Sunil Dahanayake / February 16, 2017
I am always against the bashing of Sri Lankan State Universities. It has become a passion for some Sri Lankans who belongs to the elite class of Sri Lanka to do this activity.
I work as a professional and academic outside Sri Lanka. But I worked as an Academic in a State University of Sri Lanka. I always support the State Universities of Sri Lanka. I collect expensive text books in my subject area and donate them to Sri Lankan State Universities. I conduct visiting lectures free of charge when I visit Sri Lanka. I support academics and students to get scholarships and I do many other activities.
I am aware that the University rankings are based on research publications, number of PhDs completed and other academic measures . In order to do these things, Sri Lankan government needs to invest in the State Universities of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government is not adequately providing the required research funds.
State Universities of Sri Lanka has done a great job for the past period by producing world class academics, researchers, doctors, engineers, accountants to the world market. We need to appreciate that. This has created an egalitarian society, to some extent, in Sri Lanka.
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Shanika / February 16, 2017
Sri Lankan public University problems deeper than your analysis and discuss real problems in low quality local universities: You need to sack all fake profs and follow international criteria to appoint them: In order to be a real international professor your PhD from world top 100 University, minimum 20 articles in ISI/SCOPUS indexed journals, 10 text books with international publishers and three countries have to appoint you as a Visiting professor. But all these Sri Lankan Professors are jokers and more than 40% University Lecturers are relatives to each others and they give degrees to each other (Husband gives PhD to wife and girlfriend/mistress getting PG degree, sons, daughter and son-in law and daughter- in-law). MY3 clean University system and sack fake professors and University mafia system. Some Dept are family trees. Never allow any dept to issue first degree if you do not have sufficient number of PhDs in that dept. Take some Universities many Deans do not have PhDs. This is a recipe for disaster. Identify and transfer all family members work in same University/Dept/Faculty as Lecturers. Recheck how these all family members came to system and penalize the responsible. Sometime wife is writing articles putting husband’s name for articles and husband getting professorship without shame (what ethics) presenting these to promotions. Stop University teachers are doing local PhDs in same or other Universities. You know how people get Sri Lankan passport and B. Certificates and driving license. Same way Sri Lankan PhDs also can get. Today the most important thing is your PhD must come from accredited, ranking (at least 100) best University of the world to recognized your University basic products. Now see Sri Lankan local Universities are rotten to death. Somebody has to clean it.
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beca / February 16, 2017
@pervy Yoda
I completely disagree with you about the low facilities that state universities purport to have. Some universities like jaffna, eastern, rajata sabaragamuwa may have poor facilities. However let me tell you about University of Kelaniya, if students want to learn a foreign language there are language rooms with audio/visual technology. If students want to author journals and publish them there are research centers within the university to seek for expertise and also the libraries. If ten students access an online journal the university will purchase that journal for students. There is a Research and Development Culture, unfortunately is not utilized to the maximum. There is an online virtual learning environment [computer aided learning] which is not used by all academics. Please check curriculums of certain courses there is no prescribed reading material expect hand notes/lecture notes. When you google certain key terms there are instances where the entire damn note is obtained from a non-academic source online. students read random crap on the internet wikipaedia, encyclopedia britannica (only freely available abstracts). Students have to make a huge fuss to get proper material for courses. please dont whitewash state universties. Did you know that the open university of Sri lanka obtained funding from the world bank to develop themselves? Im sure state universities could do the same if they tried. Thier reluctance to develop themselves shows the piss pathetic backward-ass culture universities promulgate.
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yunus / February 16, 2017
@Shanika
I agree with you 100% professors in universities, heads of departments are totally fake. I remember a professor giving us only one note for a 4 credit subject which was in its entirety plagiarized from wikipaedia including the footnotes. then the exam questions were set from the sub topics in the wikipaedia article. the only requirement was to by heart the entire note an reproduce it at exams. those who do the most by memerzing gets the A.
There are students who can afford to get educated abroad and with the potential to write and publish but they are snubbed. In a state university context there is such a thing as ‘you cant be too smart’. If academics can get rid of those low qualities students will respect them with all their heart and contribute to research & development. Instead they prefer to favor those who are relatives of a lecturer or who has been referred to the department as somebody with a connection to an academic. This favoritism has to stop. It is disgusting to see how they stamp on students sometimes openly comparing with others which is a disgusting quality. every student is different and unique in their own ways and comparison is unhealthy for a fair and competitive learning environment.
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Non PhD / February 16, 2017
Mr. Sunil Dhahanayake,
So you work as a professional outside SrLanka. Why ? Is it mainly for economic reasons ?
I understand one Deputy Minister from SL went to Australia and has not come back to SL for more than a month.
Any idea where he is staying in Australia ? Why he does not want to go back to SL ? If he goes back will he be arrested by the SL authorities ? Is he running a restaurant as well ?
Please enlighten the Aussie tax payers about Nimal Lansa’s extended stay there.
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Rizwan / February 17, 2017
The only correct answer is the abolish the state universities and government education system as a whole. Any other solution, e.g – reorganizing, increasing discipline etc., would simply result in the creation of a new evil in place of the old one.
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Nimal / February 18, 2017
Just get the colonials back to uplift our institutions. Bring them at least on contract.
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Academic / February 18, 2017
I agree with what this writer has said about ragging. Only academics can stop this menace but they turn a blind eye since many are raggers themselves when they were students. They are pro-ragging and condone all ragging activities. I know of how the antiragging students were treated at the science faculty at Peradeniya. When an antiragging student gets beaten at a hall of residence recently the dean asks them to forget it and takes no action against raggers. Vice Chancellors are all political appointments and they have never been keen to punish the raggers thinking that the IUSF will agitate and get the university closed. Unless ragging continues the standard of Sri Lankan universities will go from bad to worse. Regarding university staff, there is no system of monitoring their teaching and what is required is the system of tenure like in the USA where undesirables can be weeded out
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Parent / February 19, 2017
Dear Academic,
You seem to be an academic, presumably from Science Faculty, Peradeniya and you blame yourself. If only academic can stop this menace of ragging, why did’t you take any action to stop it. What have you done to stop all these irregularities in the University system? Ragging was there in the University from its inception. As you have mentioned, most academics were great raggers when they were students. You ignored ragging, but you suddenly became active and started working to stop it only after academic staff children entered university because you do not want your children to be ragged. Then again you adapted wrong strategies and that’s why you could not stop ragging in the university. You created two groups and they were fighting throughout their student career in the University and even after passing out. I sincerely hope that students of those two groups will be united and ragging will be eradicated once those old fashioned academics with wrong attitudes towards students have permanently left the University. You all academics are economic refugees. When you get an opportunity for a foreign employment for good money, you all will run away giving up all your responsibilities here.
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dayal / February 19, 2017
mr.snil d, let me put it this way whatever the shortcomings of the state uni. in SL, hundreds of students have taken the opportunity given by the uni.system to excel in their area of specialization. you are one of them. there are renowned academics and the list is lengthy for me to put forward.but thousands of students do not go to that extent and that is the problem.those hundreds were not dependent on lecture notes. they made use of the whatever library facilities available.. i am a retired prof. and i attribute my little success to my reading habits and passion to acquire new knowledge from the library (at that time-1960s-there were no internet facilities).like you i also support the state system-after all the entire bureaucracy and the available best academics were produced by it.what about our drs and engineers?
-dayal
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thrika / February 19, 2017
Most renowned academics from state universities have left the country. The current lecturers mostly come from provincial schools in certain departments and hire persons from similar backgrounds to lecture posts. Very few lecturers recognize talent and provide opportunities for students. Some are jealous with students from a well to do background with the aptitude to write and communicate. Most withhold themselves from giving classes to a student if they find out the student is simultaneously studying in a private university or law college. Universities lose out from benefitting from expertise of such students because of these jealousies. My friend who wanted to get an academic reference from colombo was badgered with so many questions about how much she is paying for the degree, too many impertinent questions and also delayed references wasting her time on purpose. There are many of these low lives in universities. Some deliberately preventing students from obtaining classes.
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Chathura / February 20, 2017
We can all agree with Natasha that state universities should and could do more to improve their global rank. However, I can not agree with reasons given by her on why our state universities lags behind. Universities are ranked based on original research studies that undertake, no of specialists within the academic staff, so-forth. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, we don’t have an strong industry that actually develop products that could benefit from calibration with universities. Therefore, hardly any engagement or funding is provided from industry to universities for research undertakings. Secondly, there is a serious lack of academic staff in state universities. We failed to attract academics to these universities, one main reason is the lack of research grants.
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S.R.H. Hoole / February 21, 2017
“We failed to attract academics to these universities, one main reason is the lack of research grants.”
When I was at Peradeniya there was an effort by the ministry to give money for research. We just had to apply.
No one from my electrical department applied except me.Then the electrical department at a meeting decided not to forward my application saying my research (finite element field computation) is mathematics and not engineering.
They were IGNORANT that serious engineering research relies heavily on mathematics and that the IEEE has major journals devoted to finite element analysis.
Perhaps significantly, they were JEALOUS that they could not write a proposal with money for the asking.
Later I got lots of money from NSF, again money for the asking. This they could not sabotage. So I recruited students and my students produced journal papers (more numerous than by my colleagues and even the rest of the department together)and the university stopped paying them saying after months of delay that they had not signed in and out whereas in the research culture students work round the clock, coming at any time and going at any time. I remember three productive students who left after their arrears exceeded Rs. 1 lakh each. One went to Virtusa — refusing even to defend his fully written out M.Phil. thesis because he had lost confidence that he would be passed. The others chose to leave the programme and study abroad. Another student who had published extensively in the international literature was failed by the local examiner who has hardly published saying the submitted research is like saying a knife that cut carrots also cuts brinjals (or something to that effect). The proof of that student’s work however was in the fact that reputed international journals had passed it for publication after review by experts. This one jealous unproductive idiot sabotaged the student’s career. That idiot I am sure will be a professor soon. Welcome to Sri Lanka!
This was in the 2000- period. Now I understand many people get grants and are doing research. The problem is that there are hardly any journal papers coming out of their work.
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Natasha / February 21, 2017
S RH Hoole. Hats off to you my friend! Current academic staff is threatened by talented students with potential so those losers just try to cut them off because of this jealousy. If they get to know you have money to study abroad then even bigger problems arise. Most academics cant write. All bloody loosers. Im glad you came up with this story its time to reveal to the country what these shitty academics do to students and bring them down. UGC must investigate and sack these fake losers who have no sense of ethics. Our universities are filled with these low-lives
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G. H. Peiris / March 24, 2017
What a lot of garbage added to the garbage produced by Natasha!
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