Look at the big picture

Media reports that the President has decided to scrap the controversial Higher Education Act, which would have enabled private universities to operate in Sri Lanka, will be met with mixed reactions.

Most parents will be disappointed that their children will not get the chance to have a quality education in their home country and will prepare to have a serious dent made in their wallets with more focus on saving to afford the expensive task of sending children abroad.

Promoters of the free education system are likely to heave a sigh of relief; even though this may be a short-lived one as the Government is capable of attempting private universities again. Most academia, students and general public will have mixed feelings as funds and resources that would have galvanised a stagnating higher education system remain denied. Any hope that better regulation would promote standards of higher education in private and public institutions already in the country have been lost.

Repeated demonstrations seem to have convinced the President that attempting the Higher Education Act at this juncture is a bad idea – at least that seems to be the case at first glance. However, the respite can be used to study the concerns against it and find out ways to better engage with students as well as root out loopholes for corruption in the act.

For example, despite the act setting up a monitoring and evaluation committee for all higher education and professional courses of study, the final decision on whether or not to allow a university to set up in Sri Lanka rests on the Higher Education Minister. This is inexplicable and undervalues the whole point of an act and administrative procedure.

The organised coalition of campus undergraduates who turned out in solidarity with their university compatriots represents a tipping point of sorts in terms of student mobilisation in post-war politics. However, the sustainability and legitimacy of such student protests will depend on whether the form and content of dissent is able to tap into the emerging wider social discontent with trends in policy and governance.

The context of the most recent round of protests can be instructive. It is apparent that the burgeoning climate of unrest in State-run universities emerges from a plethora of events, eventualities and even personalities. These are (in no particular order): the policy of expanding tertiary education through a rash of new university-like fee-levying private educational institutions; the encroachment of the neo-defence establishment on university life through enforced military camp-based inductions and new security details on campuses; the expanded suspension of students and student organisations to quell dissent and enforce discipline on campuses; and several controversial actions of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura, which has included forcing female students to take ‘virginity tests’.

In recent years, the appointment of vice chancellors – and their conduct after appointment – has been more politicised than ever. Student unrest and concomitant organised political expression of dissent can also be interpreted, therefore, as a critique of the authoritarian structures of decision-making; and how far this ethos has cast its net. If the protests resonate with wider discontent, the Government will be in a position where repressive mechanisms are likely to backfire and a change in either policy or personalities will be needed.

It’s time the officials looked at the big picture and understood the myriad of ramifications of this issue.