By Sisira Gamanayake –

In a recent episode of Aluth Parlimenthuwa, the former minister of higher education S.B. Dissanayake, several high ranking former higher education officials as well as the current VC, Ruhuna university participated. The former minister stated that the students belonging to JVP and in some cases Front Line Socialist Party (FSP) did not allow other students to stand for elections to Student Associations. They also use ragging as a way to draw new students to their own political agenda. This practice is not democratic. Ruhuna university Vice chancellor explained how he studied ragging and political activism by JVP for a long time and managed to control both successfully. Other panellists mentioned the importance of leadership program as a way to train new students in acceptable attitudes and behaviour and prepare future leaders. According to the comments by panellists, it is a small group of students affiliated with two left wing political parties that are responsible for disruptive activities including ragging in the universities. Most of the students want to go about their business of learning without interferences from others but due to the actions of students involved in left politics this has become impossible. They were critical about some VCs who do not have the backbone to control extreme student activism like the VC of Ruhuna University. 

As with any event or phenomenon, in this case also there can be multiple reasons rather than a single reason or explanation as the former minister tended to explain. When we discuss a topic like the situation in universities we cannot discuss it without looking at the broader political developments and context. Because contextual factors are intertwined with what’s going on inside universities. In particular this is so, when large groups of students have become politically aware and activist.

My main argument is that it is not only the students who are to be blamed for the current situation. University and higher education administrators as well as senior academics have also to be responsible for the current state of affairs in universities. The latter cannot put the blame squarely on some students affiliated with several political parties targeted by establishment politicians and their close bureaucrats. Appointed to positions of power. Without a proper and independent inquiry, it is not possible to accept the interpretation that ragging is conducted by students affiliated with the JVP or the Frontline Socialist party to achieve their political aims. This is especially so given the fact that the panel in this episode of Aluth Parliamenthuwa included several political appointees to higher education administration in recent decades. 

Centralised Administration Mode and Politicisation

However, a reasonable question to ask is whether this situation in universities has arisen purely as a result of student activism by left leaning students or whether there are other reasons such as the way universities are currently administered?  If this was as simple cause and effect as the panellists portray, in my view it is a reductionist and purposeful attempt to put the blame on their political opponents for the failure of university administration to provide a safe learning environment. University authorities are not apolitical. The two officials in the panel have been affiliated with ruling party or persons like the former minister, in fact one is a former classmate and the other appeared on political party platforms at election times. Therefore, one has to ask whether the current situation in universities has arisen partly as a result of the politicisation of university administration? 

As in the case of the curriculum, institutional management/administration procedures and practices also have not changed that much since the inception of universities in Sri Lanka. They are managed by a centralised system where the ultimate authority lies with the UGC and the Minister rather than the respective University Council. Are the administrators and academic staff responsible for the failure to create a student body that follows norms of society and good behaviour? 

Students do not live and learn in a vacuum. They do so in a physical and educational set up created by those in authority in the universities and their higher education masters in Colombo.  Even though the universities are located in various provinces, central administration through the University Grants Commission (UGC)and Higher education Ministry is a notable feature in Sri Lanka’s higher education administration. In the past, there have been articles published in the media by respected academic leaders about the lack of university autonomy. E.g. Savithri Goonasekera. University autonomy is a subject that the former and current ministers of higher education or their politically appointed administrators have ignored for a long time. The show continues.

Organisational Structures and Need for Change

Internal organisations within universities still reflect the structures inherited from the British e.g. Council, Senate, Faculty boards, faculties, departments. Do these need changes to suit the current times? Does our departmental structure based on specific disciplines serve the current interests including inter disciplinary collaboration in teaching, research, publications, and community service? Unlike for example in Australian universities, the last aspect is absent from our universities. Does the departmental structure within faculties lead to a silo mentality among academics rather than collaborative one? Is there enough student representation in governing bodies within universities? Do universities have enough autonomy to make their own decisions without having to obtain the approval from the Ministry of Higher education and in some cases from the President for even trivial matters?

University administration is a highly bureaucratic one. One can understand why a head of department has to refer any requests to the VC through the Dean of relevant faculty but why should a department have to obtain the approval of UGC to introduce a new course or why should an academic staff member have to obtain permission from the UGC, Ministry of higher education, or the president when applying to go on study or sabbatical leave?  Can’t these decisions be made within the university itself? Apart from the sheer waste of time and paper, when requests for various matters are referred to higher authorities delays are inevitable leading to frustration. When I applied for travel overseas several decades ago I had to submit 7 copies of my application with the original.  Academic staff even have to travel to Colombo to meet UGC or Ministry officials to chase the paper trial. Many academics take such matters as a part of life because it is the way things are?  Students are not like this. They fight for justice when it comes to matters affecting them because they have nothing to lose.

Recently I checked weather students are represented in the faculty board and Senate or the Council in several universities.  I could not find such representation. Unless student representatives are included in administration bodies, how can we expect a fair system. Without them, it can be a top down administration. Vice chancellors meet students only after a crisis. This is not a good process.

Thus, we have to question whether the University Councils are broadly representative of various stake holders in the higher education and affiliated sectors including student representatives or they are packed with many political appointees?  Because Councils are the governing bodies, there has to be a voice for the students in them as well I doubt weather this is the case today? Similarly, in addition to the nominees by the minister, there has to be representatives from industry, business, community, and internationally reputed senior academics in the councils.  Even in the Senate this has to be the case. I am not sure whether students are represented even in Faculty boards?  Without adequate representation, it is no wonder that students feel alienated from University administration.  Alienated students resort to various acts of dissent or protest. When the administrators take punitive action over some events or incidents, students take counter action. This then led to a spiral of follow up events culminating in strikes etc.  

University administrators need to consult with student bodies and groups regularly either through existing structures or on ad hoc basis depending on the issues arisen on campuses. They cannot adopt harsh measures in the first event. A therapeutic approach has to be adopted to deal with student dissent on university campuses rather than a punitive one. If the situation continues in order to preserve the elitist nature of university administration, disaffected students turn to those who listen to their grievances. This can include parties like the JVP and FSP.

Departmental structures in universities function as segregated silos with no cross departmental collaboration in teaching, research and other intellectual activities If they exist?). Faculties rarely sponsor interdisciplinary research centres.  This is more apparent in faculties of social sciences and humanities but it can be visible in other faculties as well.  Instead of colonially inherited departmental structures, universities need to conceptualise and implement organisational change to suit contemporary needs such as developing interdisciplinary courses and academic units to foster problem solving, critical thinking, community welfare and contribute to country’s development in various fields such as gender equality, human rights, empowerment of less privileged layers of society, promotion of local epistemologies and knowledge. Instead of such activities, what we see today is academic dependency of first grade on western knowledge, epistemology, methodology and traditions. Organisational and intellectual movement is necessary for change in the teaching and learning context to suit the student needs and the needs of specific contexts where they live and plan to work. For this fresh thinking is required by academic and administrative leaders without wasting their valuable time and energy to accuse political opponents for everything wrong with universities.

Lack of Mission, Vision and Curriculum Content Unique to Specific Context

More importantly, each university mission and vision have to be a unique one. Courses need to reflect a unique approach different from other universities. As it is today, I believe that most universities use a similar curriculum and teaching pattern.  If each university has a unique product, it is easy to attract international students. It then becomes possible for state funded universities to compete with overseas universities as well.

For example, is the university curriculum say in social sciences and humanities in the Jaffna University different from the one in Ruhuna or Sabaragamuwa universities? or are they similar? Can’t Jaffna university formulate a teaching program to reflect its own unique cultural, historical, geographical and epistemic context compared to Ruhuna or Colombo University? Innovative thinking is necessary to formulate such unique teaching programs. It requires academic staff to think beyond the box. More importantly to free themselves from the academic dependency on Western European and American ways of thinking and practice in respective disciplines. It also requires to think beyond each discipline and its man-made boundaries.

Ideology & Pedagogy of the Oppressed/Subalterns 

Though the universities in the country were able to admit thousands of students from underprivileged backgrounds over the decades after independence and allow many from professionally oriented faculties such as engineering, medicine, agriculture, veterinary science to join the elitist layers of government and non-government institutions for privileged lives or facilitate out migration looking for greener pastures, many from the faculties of social science and humanities became misfits in society-not because of any fault in the mental capacities of students themselves but because of the nature and quality of education provided and their relevance to student lives or society as well as the politicisation of job market.  

Sri Lanka’s universities, in particular social science and humanities faculties, still teach an outdated curriculum in most departments based on “disciplines” whose epistemology, theory, perspectives and methodology go back to the days of western colonialism and imperialism. Students from underprivileged backgrounds who qualified in various disciplines and filled the seats of academic power, when the previous generation of academics trained in UK, USA or Europe in general plus English-speaking countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand left, failed to bring an ideology and pedagogy of the oppressed (or subalterns) to their new roles as administrators or senior academics.  Instead they enjoyed the privileges of their positions including duty free cars, University bungalows, leave with salaries, scholarships from foreign governments and institutions to “maintain the system” within universities and in larger society that includes so many unequal layers.There was no serious curriculum or pedagogical reform to bring in an ideology and pedagogy of the oppressed that are relevant to contemporary conditions of existence by the students. What they and their predecessors learned from Western universities assisted by university leave provisions and foreign scholarships became the wisdom that is to be imparted to generations of students without a corresponding critique of the western knowledge and pedagogy applicable to the oppressed conditions of life that the students came from. Answer to the struggle for survival these students faced in the face of competing economic, political and social paradigms of thought and action was to either preach Marxism in its classical type (not even incorporating its later developments by way of Neo Marxism or decolonial thought but to encourage students to embrace the existing system and respect it in the name of democracy and development -both unrealised-which the students resented.  

To fill the gap in ideology and pedagogy, the availability of an anti-hegemonic political platform from the JVP/ NPP and the FSP was welcome news for students from the underprivileged backgrounds. It spoke to their conditions in life, wealth illegally accumulated by politicians and their close bureaucrats (Chaura Valalla), use of state power and resources including the media to tarnish the image of these parties, and maintain a corrupt system for the benefit of a few unusually and disproportionately wealthy individuals and families. In other words, students found the ideology and pedagogy provided by these progressive political parties speaking truth to the power as against the establishment parties that used many tricks in the book to misguide the electors and win elections including the provision of material gifts.  

Thus, we have seen the existence of the establishment ideology and pedagogy based on Western thought, knowledge, training, and qualifications on one hand and an indigenous/local mode of thought and action provided by the two political entities mentioned here.The latter is socially progressive and oriented toward change in the overall system rather than its reinforcement. This is despised by establishment politicians and so-called academics who enjoy the fruits of their affiliation with establishment political parties and their leaders. The latter is a group of so-called intellectuals (they are not) who sell out the rest from underprivileged backgrounds for private gain.  The episode of Aluth Parliamenthuwa mentioned here depicts this drama being played out for public consumption and to point the torch towards politically active and aware students seeking a system change accusing them of ragging and torture etc.  

JVP/NPP and FSP Political Platforms

In recent years, these parties together with their supporters in the countryside and suburbia as well as universities have mounted a credible critique of the outdated political and governance system infested with system breeders in post independent Sri Lanka including a focus on corruption, nepotism, waste, mismanagement, and the sustenance of a near hereditary politico-bureaucratic system by the ruling class instead of a meritocratic one.  Given the economic collapse seen in recent months and the impact on everyday life, the wider population has embraced this critique and the alternative plan/platform these parties are promoting to recover the lost economy, country, wealth, prosperity and way of life.  

The current predicament is the result of decades of promoting an import oriented, high intensity foreign capital injection economic model that encouraged the politicians and others to live beyond the means and neglect local industry, manufacturing, agriculture, knowledge production, innovation etc.in the name of globalisation, free trade, need for foreign investments etc. In the process, the humanitarian focus of the collective based on traditional way of life, scholarhip, intellectual heritage, values and cultural make up has been sacrificed over individual gain.  Competition has been introduced as a panacea for all ills in society and the economy but the overall system has been designed in such a way that a few associated with politico-bureaucratic power benefits over the majority.   The parties mentioned here are advocating a change in this system through democratic means.i.e. educating the electors and elections. The inroads these parties are making in the general population, especially the underprivileged strata in society and their mentality are significant. This is despised by establishment politicians and their bureaucratic affiliates.  Therefore, we can see how they unsuccessfully attempt to label these parties for encouraging university students to engage in anti-social behaviour like the drug use without evidence collected by an independent enquiry.

Readers are reminded about the fact that ragging and torture are widespread phenomena in higher education institutions. They are not necessarily peculiar to one group of students like those affiliated with the JVP/NPP or FSP. Only through an independent inquiry one can find out who the culprits are? Not through politically motivated accusations by establishment politicians and their close university administrators who have vested interests to make accusations against their political opponents.

Needs of the Community around Universities

Universities can do much to serve the communities around their location and beyond. An element of community service needs to be included in the staff promotion criteria. It should be part of their university missions and visions. Such service could be by way of research, consultancies, action-oriented projects, or simply visiting schools, old age homes, or community organisations involved in services.

Web Link – Aluth Parlimenthuwa,  December 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPdrhdLAP_I&t=2644s