Barring local students from KDU medical degree

The Government’s decision to refrain from recruiting locally qualified civilian students to the medical degree program offered by Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) has caused shock and consternation among many. Making a special statement in the Parliament, Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara confirmed that only cadets and international students will be permitted to follow medical studies at the State Defence University.

At first glance, the move to stop recruiting local civilian students by the KDU whilst imposing no restrictions on foreign students appears to be quite weird. According to media reports, the controversial decision has been made due to the strong opposition expressed by the medical practitioners among NPP MPs towards granting opportunities for civilian students to follow the KDU’s MBBS degree program.

The ideological parent of the NPP – the Marxist JVP – was viscerally opposed towards the establishment of Private Medical Colleges (PMC) in the country. Nevertheless, the NPP – the more modern and less leftist successor of the JVP – conveyed a noticeably accommodative stance towards PMCs prior to the two national elections last year in spite of the past antagonistic views of its predecessor. Such a shift in the position would have been necessitated by the requirement to enhance the appeal of the political coalition among upper middle-class voters – a vital group of voters in determining the outcome of national elections. 

About a decade ago, prominent leaders of the NPP – including President Anura Kumara Disanayake and Agriculture Minister K.D. Lalkantha – were at the forefront of leading a public agitation against SAITM – a PMC that was setup by Dr. Neville Fernando – which eventually led to its closure.

A considerable resentment exists towards private universities among certain segments of the Sri Lankan society. Despite such opposition, a plethora of private institutions offer degrees in the fields such as engineering, business administration, IT, law, etc. However, whenever attempts have been made to enable private institutions to offer degrees in the sphere of medicine, an unprecedented level of hostility is exercised by groups with vested interests. The medical practitioners among NPP legislators are graduates from Government universities who would have been associated with the political activities of the Inter-University Student Federation – the militant university student group which has strenuously opposed opening up avenues for private universities in the island. 

Moreover, an overwhelming majority of graduates/undergraduates of State campuses demonstrate a great deal of social antipathy towards students who pursue higher studies from private degree-awarding institutes on the false presumption that such students come from highly wealthy backgrounds. Political forces like the JVP and Frontline Socialist Party have historically been involved in political propaganda which aligns with the social antipathy towards students of private campuses.

A number of Lanka medical practitioners who were educated from taxpayer-funded education, have left the shores for greener pastures. When there was a large exodus of medical professionals coinciding with the 2022 economic crisis, people were even questioning the rationale behind providing university degrees in medicine at the cost of taxpayers. As the State university system does not have the capacity to satisfy the demand for higher education for medicine, a colossal sum of foreign exchange goes out of the country as parents send their children to countries like China, Malaysia, Nepal, Belarus, and Bangladesh to realise their dream of seeing their children becoming doctors one day. According to the Treasury, the KDU owes Rs. 33 billion to the NSB in respect of a loan taken to build a state-of-the-art teaching hospital for its Faculty of Medicine. The university attached to the defence establishment stands to lose Rs. 2 billion per year owing to the ill-conceived move.

When the demands of the era require policymakers to be pragmatic as well as forward-thinking, the bizarre move to curtail opportunities for local students to gain higher education in medicine from the KDU can be considered as a highly regressive move which does not serve the best interest of the country.