News
Union agitations condemn undergrads, lecturers to hard labour
The high frequency of union activities at state universities is taxing the system.
The Sunday Times learns from administrators, students and lecturers of the leading universities that the resulting backlog and increased workload, which is a product of lecture boycotts and university shutdowns, cause an ineffective cramming of work, a drop in the quality of lectures, and increased stress for students and lecturers.
The University of Kelaniya has had to cut down the 15-week semester to 12 weeks, to deal with the time lost due to the strikes by non-academic staff, which lasted for over one-and-a-half months in every faculty except the medical faculty where the duration of classes cannot be shortened.
Wijayananda Rupasinghe, director of communications and media and the university’s spokesperson, said all faculties continued lectures for longer, until up to 8 pm, to cope with disruptions. He admitted this could have a negative effect on lecturers and students.
“Some lecturers work the whole day. Most of their time is spent on student affairs. They do not have time to carry out research. This affects the quality of lecturer output, and this issue is of national interest,” Mr Rupasinghe said.
The Dean of the university’s Medical Faculty, Professor Nilanthi De Silva said the anti-SAITM lecture boycotts contributed to the backlog.
She said that the senior-most medical batch, which was scheduled to sit for exams this May, would have to wait until at least next March. She said that the students were nowhere near ready to face the final exam. “To deal with this our faculty had to fit in 50 weeks’ work into around 40 weeks.”
She added that the authorities were responsible for ignoring the gravity of this and for slacking in their decision-making.
“Our students went into this with their eyes open. They knew the consequences of the protests. Perhaps they didn’t anticipate it dragging for so long. This is the responsibility of the government and authorities,” Prof De Silva said.
Meanwhile, at the University of Colombo, plans are being made to deal with the backlog and other study interruptions in the long-run, Vice Chancellor Prof Lakshman Dissanayake said.
He said he planned to implement learning management systems in the university as part of a World Bank-funded project. He said this would allow students to follow lectures online and interact during non-lecture hours. “Then if students miss lectures for whatever reason, they can catch up easily in their free time,” Prof Dissanayake said.
He said this could help deal with student protests and strikes by non-academics. However, he said the university will require the presence of its academic staff.
He said he recognised the students’ right to protest and that he had never stopped them from carrying out demonstrations.
However, the University of Sri Jayewardenepura has a different outlook on student protests.
Vice Chancellor, Prof Sampath Amaratunge said he did not like protests for whatever reason, and that the aggrieved parties should negotiate instead.
He also said that senior students had night lectures regularly as they did internships simultaneously.
“Students at Jayewardenepura haven’t complained regarding this, but even if they do, it doesn’t bother us because, in my opinion, they come here to learn, and I want them to make the most of their time here,” the Prof Amaratunge said.
Imalka Weerasundara, a second-year medical student at Colombo said: “We are behind by six months and once we finish our degree we will have to wait for a similar period before we can get our internship appointments.”
Niroshan Sivaranjan, a second-year medical student at Sri Jayawardenepura said the students had decided on a lecture boycott to protest the SAITM issue.
“It was initially planned for two months, but it dragged on. We ended up missing 10 months’ work, and we had to catch up. Since it’s a medical degree you cannot reduce the course size, so the degrees were extended by 10 months,” Mr. Sivaranjan said.
Dr Hemantha De Silva, a convener of the Parents Union of Medical Students, said: “We understand what happened and we have no problem with this [degrees being extended]. The work has to be completed one way or another.’’
Prof Rathnasiri Arangala, a lecturer at the department of Sinhala and mass communication at Jayewardenepura, said that following various delays, like the non-academics strike, 15-week semesters were shortened to 13 weeks. “Extra lectures were scheduled to cover the original 15 week semester lecture hours. However, the hours are within the minimum eight-hour weekly framework. It is a faculty norm that a senior lecturer should teach for a minimum of eight hours a week,” he said.
Dr Keerthi Ariyadasa, a lecturer at the department of political science and public policy at the University of Colombo, said: “When a semester is shortened to 11 weeks it is difficult to teach subjects like political philosophy, because these subjects require time for student discussions.