How Popular Presidential Election Promise Can Be Fulfilled: University Education For All Those Who Qualify At GCE A/L
Prof R.P. Gunawardane
Undoubtedly, higher education is the only path to upward mobility for most of our youth. Thus, university admission has become extremely competitive in Sri Lanka and it remains a very sensitive national issue for many decades. Only about 17% of those who qualify for university admission is admitted to state universities for free higher education leaving out over 80%. This means that a very large number of deserving students are denied admission to our universities every year. As a result, many students seek admission to foreign universities at a very high expense, particularly because alternative avenues are not available in most demanding disciplines. They are also our citizens, who have been denied university education due to lack of places in the state university system. Thus, it is a responsibility of the government to provide these youth at least the freedom of choice for alternative university level education with some state support.
To achieve this important national objective the following proposals are presented for implementation. It is important to note that this proposal does not include very high capital expenditure or establishing new state universities. The same objective can be achieved with some adjustments to the existing university system and with strong state sector-private sector participation with minimum additional investment by the state. We need to make use of other non-state sector higher education establishments (non-profit as well as for profit) for this purpose by facilitating their expansion with specific guideline/rules and with a strong mechanism for accreditation and quality assurance.
The main proposals are outlined below:
Pre-requisites
There are several pre-requisites to implement these proposals. First of all, our state university system should be synchronized to coincide with international system. Currently, different universities have different academic years. It is even more depressing to note that different faculties operate different academic years within the same university!
Thus, the university academic year should be fixed like in all the other countries from September to June (9 -10 months) beginning 2020-2021. Like our school academic year (January-December) this should not be changed under any circumstance. If there are disruptions due to strikes etc. course material should be displayed on line, alternative arrangements should be made for practical/clinical training and the exams should be held as scheduled. This is very essential to get the new batch admitted on time.
In order to start this process GCE A/L examination should be held in April every year (like in 2002-2007 period), the results should be released in June, so that the new batches can be admitted in September in the same year. This will lead to smooth functioning of the university system as practiced in all the other countries.
State University System
Sri Lankan state university system consists of 15 universities representing all the provinces in the country with a total of 89 faculties covering almost all the disciplines. In addition, there are six other university level degree awarding institutions established by acts of Parliament but operated under different Ministries outside the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The university system under the UGC should be given the complete freedom with regard to academic matters as stipulated in the Universities Act No.16 of 1978. No additional legislation is needed immediately for this action. Unfortunately, in recent years UGC has taken over some functions of the university senates with regard to implementation of new academic programs. This is irregular and the UGC has exceeded its power and violated the Universities Act in this regard. This irregularity should be stopped immediately so that novel programs allowing more admissions to universities will be expedited and promoted in our university system.
Optimizing use of existing facilities
