Perilous State Of Higher Education – Cooperation, Not confrontation, Need Of The Day
By W.A. Wijewardena -August 27, 2012
Dr. W.A. Wijewardena
The ominous closure of State universities
The closure of the Sri Lanka’s State university system by the country’s higher education authorities recently is not quite an unexpected move.
When the strike action by the academics of the State university system had paralysed most of the universities and all attempts at bringing the striking academics within the Government’s solution-frame had failed, the only course of action available to authorities has been to seek guidance from history.
On all such occasions in the past, the reaction of the authorities to protracted university issues has been the same: Close the universities and show the trouble making students, academics or non-academics that the Government holds the final answer to the issue. It also conveys an ominous message.
That message is that the authorities are prepared to keep the country’s university system closed until sanity returns to trouble makers and express willingness to start negotiations afresh once again. Such second round negotiations have always been successful in taming the warring parties and pushing them toward a solution which the authorities feel is the best for the country’s education system.
That message is that the authorities are prepared to keep the country’s university system closed until sanity returns to trouble makers and express willingness to start negotiations afresh once again. Such second round negotiations have always been successful in taming the warring parties and pushing them toward a solution which the authorities feel is the best for the country’s education system.
