Rajarata uni crisis: Medical grads, lecturers petition President
View(s):Rajarata University medical students and lecturers have handed over letters to the Presidential Secretariat, urging the government to resume academic activities that have been suspended. The letter sent by the student calls for President Maithripala Sirisena’s intervention to solve the problems faced by the students and lecturers. They call on the President to increase the number of professors, provide salary increments to the staff, and resume the payment of the retention allowance.
The letter signed by student union president Dinuka Nandasiri, says academic activities have come to a halt after the retention allowance paid to the academic staff was stopped. The students also call for better accommodation facilities for the lecturers and urge the President to make provisions for the lecturers to admit their children to reputed schools in the North Central Province. They also point out that lecturers need better facilities to continue their research work and call on the Government to provide them a transport allowance to travel to Colombo for research work.
The letter also points out that the resources available for students to complete the curriculum are insufficient and urge the Government to look into this matter. The faculty has 49 lecturers in the permanent staff, whereas the requirement is 107, student leader Nandasiri said, adding that of the 49, only 37 were regular lecturers.
He claimed that the retention allowance paid to lecturers from 2014 was stopped by Vice Chancellor Ranjith Wijewardena from September this year, after the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recommended that universities should cut down extra expenditures and money be spent only on programmes approved by the University Grants Commission.
Instead of seeking approval to continue the allowance, the Vice Chancellor stopped it, the student leader charged. He said the vice chancellor had rejected the students’ appeal to resume the allowance, saying that the UGC had not given its approval. The student leader said he was unsuccessful every time he tried to meet the UGC chairman and finally he handed over a letter to a clerk at the UGC office seeking an appointment.
He said that when the parents of the students tried to meet the UGC chairman, they were told that the chairman was busy and the university had autonomy to resolve the matter. “In desperation, we staged a demonstration, demanding a meeting with the UGC chairman but we were not allowed to enter the premises,” he said.
The Sunday Times learns that the Presidential Secretariat has ordered the UGC to look into the issue and report back to the President, after a second letter from the Rajarata University’s Medical Faculty Lecturers Association reaches the Presidential Secretariat.
- Kasun Warakapitiya