Higher Education: Getting More And More Into A Mess.

Colombo Telegraph

IN JOURNALISM TRUTH IS A PROCESS
By Professor Vijay Kumar -

Professor Vijaya KumarSri Lankan higher education seems to be getting more and more into a mess. While the government is desperate to encourage private higher education and faltering badly in these efforts, it seems to be unable to deal with student protests and labour disputes in the Universities. The student leadership which is not totally representative of the students and unable normally to mobilize student activism is being provided with rallying points by government action. To make matters worse we have had to face the imbroglio of the GCE A/L results this year.

Since higher education has been the main process which permitted children from Sri Lanka’s working and rural population to break through class barriers and socially advance, it is vital that this process be protected. But what is the government doing?

Unfortunately the JVP leadership in the Universities is unwilling to test its strength at University elections relying instead on ragging to ensure that elections are uncontested and the process works in 

The GCE A/L fiasco has caused much heartburn among students and parents in this country. When the original results had very obvious errors, the credibility of the Examinations Department built up over several decades was lost. Nothing short of a complete re-examination of the entire process would satisfy students, parents and the general public and help  rebuild confidence in the system. However the committee appointed to look into the problem claims that its mandate was restricted merely to the rankings of students. Rankings are themselves based on Z-scores and it is this which ultimately decides on who is admitted to the University. If Z-scores are wrong, even though rankings are revised to correspond to (the wrong) Z-scores, neither rankings nor Z-scores will provide a correct assessment of performance of the candidate. If the Z-scores were not to be scrutinized, there was no need for a high powered Committee.   Continue reading »