Student talk

The road outside the University Grants Commission (UGC) is a frequent venue for violence. Every few months students converge before the institution charged with regulating the higher education system of Sri Lanka, demanding solutions for their problems. More often than not they get stony silence or, as on Thursday, tear gas, water cannons, beatings and arrests courtesy of the Police.

Thirty-nine students were arrested from the Higher National Diploma in Engineering (HNDE) program after a bloody battle with the police where even girls were roundly bashed up by law enforcement officers. Gruesome pictures of students being carried away with blood pouring from wounds found their way to the front pages of national newspapers the next day along with quick quotes from the Police insisting they used “minimum force”.

Ironically the clash with Police came just hours after Samantha Power, the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, speaking during the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit in Mexico lauded the current Government saying it had been swift to embrace the ideals of democracy, even going so far as to allow dissent. She went on to strongly criticise the previous Government led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa insisting his time in power showed the world “the profound costs of impunity and corruption”.

The current Government headed by President Maithripala Sirisena together with a determined and persistent civil society that would not give up “swung the pendulum back toward greater accountability and transparency,” she said, adding it showed how much leaders can achieve, even in a short period of time, when “they are willing to engage the people they serve”.

One would argue that this is precisely what is missing when it comes to university students – engagement. Even though courts gave bail to all arrested students the very next day and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered Law and Order Minister Thilak Marapone to compile a report on the clash, there are still too many questions over the real grievances of the students. 

HNDE followers are asking for degree status to be given to their program and while it may not be possible to meet student expectations completely, there must be an effort to at least engage with these students with the genuine intention of trying to find solutions. Given the restrictions of the public higher education system and the high cost of private universities, many youth would find external programs more accessible but are faced with the problem that they are not recognised in the job market at the same level as degrees.

However, students do spend years on these diploma courses and without proper accreditation given, they are not making optimum use of the best years of their lives. It is a legitimate problem not just for the students but also for the country as the education system is not creating employable youth. This is applicable not just to the HNDE program but also external degrees offered by most public universities countrywide. 

It is true the UGC is heavily politicised, under-resourced and beset by problems, but it still has a responsibility to engage, not just with students but the public as well, so there is a level of accountability to its actions. After all the UGC is a public institution run with public funds and is tasked with educating the future generation of this country.