KNDU Bill: Is the devil as black as he is painted?

The current discourse and criticisms relating to the KNDU Bill are mainly in two areas. The first is the bill’s approach to delivery of higher education which is fee-levying and defence centred. The second is the new university not coming under the Universities Act of 1978 – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara 

By Dr. Sisira Pinnawala

The Kotelawala National Defence University Bill was first proposed in 2018 but due to strong opposition from stakeholders, political parties and civil society groups, the then Government decided not proceed with it.

The main Opposition party that was against the bill then is now bringing to the Parliament and wants it passed. Those who were part of the then Government now in Opposition and would have voted in support of the bill in 2018 had it come up for debate seem to be having second thoughts today. This shows that for the two main political parties it is not the merits or the demerits of the bill that matter but the political mileage it gives them. 

For others like the left groups and professional bodies, it is either their respective ideological stands and/or their self and professional interests. This is clearly evident from the deafening silence on the part of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) that was in the forefront of the fight for free education during the SAITM saga.

The current discourse and criticisms are mainly in two areas. 

The first is the bill’s approach to delivery of higher education which is fee-levying and defence centred. It is claimed that a defence university conducting civilian courses will result in militarisation of education in the country. The fee-levying education model is criticised claiming that it will lead to commodification of education and limiting the access of students from low-income households to higher education. 

The second is the new university not coming under the Universities Act of 1978. This they argue will have adverse impact on the quality of the degree programmes offered by KNDU. 

Militarisation of society

The issue of militarisation comes from KDU formally entering into the domain of higher education as a fully-fledged university. Being a defence university, the management of KDU is by military establishment. The Vice Chancellor is a military officer and the majority of the Governing Council come from defence services. 

The proposed bill states that one of its objectives is to train public service officers, individuals who are controlling the nerve centres of the State. Therefore, if KDU wants to legitimise itself as a fully-fledged university serving the civilian community of the country as well, it needs to find a way to make its civilian academic programmes not determined by military thinking and ideologies. 

Those who accuse KDU of militarising higher education also claim that it currently has rules, regulations and codes of conduct that impose military like conformity over its students. It is claimed that KNDU students have to comply with a dress code and are even required to take designated routes (footpaths, etc.) getting from one place to another.

State-run universities may not have similar rules adopted formally but in them too there are unwritten rules and codes of conduct regulating student behaviour. There is a dress code and other restrictions imposed on first year students during ragging which euphemistically is called welcoming new students in State universities.

There are no-go areas in them for certain groups of students like those who are considered “posh,” meaning English speaking. Those who do not conform are ostracised by students who consider that their writ should apply to all. Staff student interaction is another area where sanctions exist. Therefore, the so-called conformity and regimental control are matters for interpretation. 

Commodification of education

Commodification of education is another criticism against the proposed bill. What is argued here is that fee-levying education is selling education for money. Selling education for money makes education a commodity like any other product in the market according to those who promote this argument. They argue that fee-levying education will create an education market which will be run by private entrepreneurs whose motive is profit. That will also have adverse impact on the quality of education, it is claimed.

It is further argued that the profit-driven education market will eventually push the State out of delivery of education or allow the State to voluntarily withdraw from it. When that happens only those who can afford, i.e., the rich, will be able to receive higher education. 

This argument is oversimplification of the situation. First, fee-levying education is not selling education for money with the sole motive of making profits. The vast majority of fee-levying educational institutions in the world are not-for-profit establishments.

In countries where fee levying universities are the norm, for example US, there are strict regulatory mechanisms like accreditation bodies and other systems of standard maintenance to ensure academic quality is maintained.

Second, as experiences of other countries show, market mechanisms prevent even for-profit-universities charging unreasonable fees as student are rational consumers. Students are no fools; they consider value for money before “buying the product (commodity) of education’.

University outside of the Universities Act

KDU not coming under the Universities Act, hence under the regulatory control of the University Grants Commission (UGC), is another issue raised by its opponents. The argument here is that KDU operating outside the regulatory control of UGC will, in addition to having adverse impact on the quality of academic programmes, allows academic activities, both designing of academic programmes and their implementation, to be decided by military thinking.

It is true that the proposed university is outside the regulatory control of UGC but KDU is not the first university in the country to be established by a separate Act. The University of Vocational Technology established in 2008 (University of Vocational Technology Act No. 31 of 2008) and Ocean University established in 2014 (Ocean University of Sri Lanka Act No. 31 of 2014) are two other universities in the country that do not come under the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978. At the time they were established there were no objections. 

Not all countries have UGCs or UGC like institutions, for example the US, but they maintain quality of their education. In fact, one authority having all powers of accreditation could be even harmful in the long-term as it gives absolute power in determining the standards.

The country’s higher education will be better served if accreditation is taken out of the grips of the university academic bureaucracy and make it fully independent, i.e., by creating a fully independent accreditation body or bodies. Therefore, instead of bringing KDU under the accreditation mechanism of UGC as the Government is planning to do, the better option would be to have an accreditation mechanism outside of UGC for all universities and other degree-awarding institutions. 

Free education vs. freedom of education 

There are several other issues with regard to the so-called free education in the country. Whatever the opponents of the KNDU Bill say, education is not fully free in this country. One needs to consider the amount of money parents spend as tuition getting children to universities to know this. In addition to the number of school children who attend tuition classes, there are also fee-levying schools. Though it is true that university students do not pay tuition, getting into a university is extremely difficult and only about one-fifth of those who are qualified get admission.

Here we need to make another important distinction. We offer education free of charge at the university to a selected few but there is no freedom of education for those others who fail to get a place in the universities. They either go overseas if they can afford it or just dropout. The saviours of free education are blind to this problem and do not want to speak about it. Their concern is the privileged few who are in State-run universities, their own students. The Government too is not worried about those who cannot/do not get into universities because there is no pressure coming from them as they do not protest in public. 

Threats to academic freedom and suppression of dissent 

There are also other criticisms that are more about procedures and operations of the proposed university. One often-cited criticism is that the KNDU Bill if established will threaten academic freedom and also will not allow dissent.

One hears opponents of the bill citing the Lima Declaration in this regard. The Lima Declaration adopted by the World University Service (WUS) at its sixth General Assembly in 1988 defines academic freedom as the “freedom of members of the academic community, individually or collectively, in the pursuit, development and transmission of knowledge, through research, study, discussion, documentation, production, creation, teaching lecturing and writing”. There is nothing in the bill restricting academic freedom as defined in the declaration.

Linked to the above is the Power of the Minister. It is alleged that KDNU Bill gives the Minister of Defence unlimited powers to control dissent by Section 7 in Part III of the bill to control a situation that has potential to endanger national security or is detrimental to national policy. Opponents of the bill claim that this could be used to suppress dissent and freedom expression in the university. However, Section 20 (3) in Part III of the Universities Act 16 of 1978 gives the Minister in charge of education the exact same powers. 

Devil not so black challenging devils with white faces

Though the KNDU Bill in its present form is controversial, it has the potential to be a turning point in the higher educational landscape of the country. The country needs to open up its higher education allowing not-for-profit higher education model and non-State higher education model as alternatives to State-sponsored delivery mechanism. KDU does the first. 

Not only has the UGC been tightening its hold on universities, taking away their freedom gradually, but also the powers of the Minister have increased, especially with the Universities (Amendments) Act 7 of 1985. Internal directives also are being extensively used by UGC in this.

The UGC today is a de facto university, something that the formulators of the Universities Act of 1978 did not want. The UGC is an administrative behemoth that our higher education does not need and the country cannot afford. This means that there are dangers within that need to be corrected. The KNDU Bill corrects many of these while retaining some others.

It is also high time that we revisited the fundamentals of our higher education model founded on the ideology of so-called free education. Our education is free only in the sense that the major provider, the State, does not charge fees. But there are fee-levying schools and institutes, both for-profit and not-for-profit. There is also the education black market especially targeting GCE (OL/AL) students and those who are following external degree programmes in our universities.

Our education is also not free as there is no freedom of education and those who do not get admission to universities have no alternatives available to pursue higher education. All these need to be addressed and the not-for-profit fee-levying higher education model of the proposed KNDU Bill is a viable alternative. 

The KNDU Bill is described by its opponents as the devil that has come to destroy our free education. Though there are issues that need to be corrected, the devil is not as black as it is painted. Also, the Universities Act and UGC are not the saints the opponents of the KNDU Bill claim them to be. They are also devils, but with white faces.

(The writer is Director, Veemansa Initiative, Colombo, and retired Professor in Sociology, University of Peradeniya. He can be reached via [email protected])