New front to an old battle

THE Police and university students of Sabaragamuwa University clashed on Saturday over a long fermenting dispute over union rights, with four people being arrested, and has thrown the limelight back on the country’s beleaguered higher education system.

The unrest began earlier this month when the Vice Chancellor of Sabaragamuwa University, with the assistance of the Higher Education Ministry, decided to ban student unions on campus. In 2011, the Ministry assisted in the ban of unions at Peradeniya University and since then have sustained a campaign to quash activists in other institutions as well.  

Last Wednesday, four students began a hunger strike in protest of the ban and also demanded that five students who had been suspended over their connection to student unions be readmitted to the university.

On Saturday morning, the four students who were fasting had to be hospitalised due to their severely deteriorating health conditions. This triggered a massive protest from the university students who marched in solidarity of the four hospitalised students and demanded that the Government resolve their issues with the student unions.

The students blocked the main Colombo-Badulla road, resulting in a clash between the students and Police. Four students were arrested. The Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) Convener Sanjeewa Bandara told media that the Army had also been deployed to disperse the protesting students and alleged that they were being harassed by both the Police and Army.

At first glance, the banning of unions appears to be a good move. After all, unions disrupt the running of universities, prevent students from learning and in many instances have ragged and otherwise victimised youth. Unions have been responsible for political unrest and the death of many in the past and most people would be justified in saying good riddance.

However, the plan of the Government to bring in private universities gives the situation a different twist. The Government’s interference in the running of public universities to the point of insisting on military training for students and security firms composed of former Army personnel being deployed at universities has created more dimensions that need to be carefully considered.

The Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF), that has so earned the ire of the Government, is at the centre of this controversy and in many ways embodies the student union movement of Sri Lanka. IUSF states its mission is “to save free education and [act] against the privatisation of education that turns education in to a commodity”. This is what has brought it to the front and centre of the private university battle.

There are valid fears that the public university system, which is a boon to the poorest youth, will be undermined by the Government’s bulldozing tactics that do not consult stakeholders and do not provide sufficient budget allocations and other resources for them to remain competitive. How can students, lecturers, professors and others make the Government listen? Repeated strikes, marches, hunger strikes and arrests have provided no solutions but have highlighted how deep the issues in Sri Lanka’s education sector actually go.  

Moreover, the situation is worsened by the fact that the Government prefers to be suppressive rather than engaging, even going so far as to impose a security force under the Defence Ministry on universities, which takes on an even more insidious hue given that past student uprisings have nearly toppled governments. The only thing that is clear is with the Sabaragamuwa clash is that the situation has worsened.