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GMOA, SACS each to its own while agreeing to Govt.’s proposal
The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) and the Student Action Committee of SAITM (SACS) have agreed to the government’s proposal to absorb SAITM students into the Kotelawala Defence University (KDU), subject to the govt. agreeing to their respective conditions.
The GMOA has consented to the proposal as long as SAITM is officially abolished, and the students go through a screening process whereby, only the ‘qualified’ ones are accepted. GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Naveen de Zoysa told the Sunday Times the screening process should be determined after receiving input from the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) and the KDU. He said the agreed method should not overrule the Universities Act (1978) and the Medical Ordinance.
However, SACS Secretary Chathushka Rambukwella said SAITM students had been enrolled with UGC approval, after complying with their requirements, and therefore, the solution should be that all the students are absorbed. “They can re-check our qualifications if they want to, but there can’t be any newly imposed requirements brought by either the KDU or the SLMC, which will unfairly disqualify a number of our students,” Mr. Rambukwella said. “Every student who was deemed ‘qualified’ by the UGC and went through the proper channels to get into SAITM, should be admitted to the KDU.”
He said that, if any such unfair method of determination arose, all students would stand in solidarity with one another and refuse acceptance, until a fair solution is provided for all. Previously, with the situation dragging, despite the President proposing KDU as a solution in December last year, the SAITM students’ future was in a state of limbo. A protest was held demanding an expeditious passage to the KDU solution.
Some students in their 30s, questioned, as to when they would be able to earn and, start and support a family?“A quarter of our lives would be wasted,” one student said. Higher Education Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakse said if the Cabinet paper to be submitted on Tuesday is approved, the solution will be implemented the very next day.
The minister stated very clearly there should be no misunderstanding about what is being proposed. He said that most of the people who protested the KDU solution, were objecting to an affiliation of SAITM by KDU, whereby SAITM would run under a new name.
The controversial KDU Act (drafted in 2017), which led to protests by the GMOA and State university student unions, was temporarily suspended. Those who protested believed it would give the KDU immense powers to affiliate any university to it.
“This is not the case,” Minister Rajapakse said. “The KDU Bill was not presented in Parliament after an order from the President. What we have proposed is that, SAITM students who qualify with the sufficient requirements, would be absorbed into the KDU, not an affiliation with the institute. However there are still those who oppose this solution.”