News
Some academics won’t attend Temple Trees meeting
An invitation to university academics and non-academics to attend a ‘progress review’ meeting at Temple Trees tomorrow amid an intense campaign for the presidential polls has drawn protests.
The invitation has been sent by the Higher Education Ministry and the University Grants Commission.
The Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) has strongly objected to the meeting, saying a ‘progress review’ meeting was usually held by the UGC.
“We find the timing of such a meeting extremely questionable. Previously too, a meeting was held in 2010, just prior to the presidential election. We consider such initiatives blatant attempts to politicise the administration of the higher education sector,” a FUTA statement said.
“FUTA had been agitating since 2012 for the establishment of a Presidential Commission to review the existing higher education sector and to propose higher education policy. We find it extremely curious that such initiatives are ignored and instead, meetings of this nature are hurriedly called only once an election has been announced,” FUTA President Chandraguptha Thenuwara said.
In contrast, the vice chancellor of the Wayamba University has issued a form requiring the details of the academics who wished to attend the meeting and those who won’t attend.
“Our identity card numbers, our telephone numbers and class numbers were required to be provided in the form. We were also asked to tick a box stating whether we wanted to participate or not. We had to place our signature in the form too,” a staff member said.
He said this form was due to be sent to the President’s office. “The University staff members had then protested stating it was unethical, because nobody could force a staff member to attend such a meeting,” he said.
Dr. Primal Fernando, President of the Peradeniya University Engineering Faculty Teachers’ Union, said that in 2010 just prior to the Presidential election, a similar meeting was called but it was only a dinner.
University Grants Commission chairperson Kshanika Hirimburegama, however, assured the Sunday Times that the meeting would be limited for one and a half hours and that there would not be a dinner. She said these meetings were an annual event but added that last year, the progress review meeting was held at the UGC premises.
Eastern University Vice Chancellor Kiddnan Kobindarajah said these progress review meetings were held from time to time. He, however, declined to comment on whether, it was regular for these meeting to require the presence of both, the academic and non-academic staff members.