Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, at Kothelawala Defence University is the worst working place in Sri Lanka.

(Lanka-e-News- 11.Feb.2015, 11.00PM) This faculty cater five degree programmes (Nursing, Radiography, Pharmacy, physiotherapy and Medical laboratory science). However, it is sorry to mention that, there is no academic freedom to the civil academic staff, and also the appalling slavery like treatment to the educated young lecturers by the Dean of the faculty (Col. P.T.R.  Makuloluwa).  Even in the weekends or on leaves, the faculty Dean expects every staff member including professors, senior lecturers & lecturers, to follow her orders with no remorse.

Recently, there were a lot of issues arisen with the Dean & the senior lectures.  The faculty Dean, having just an MD, doesn’t have necessary qualification or experience to become a Dean. Hence, she doesn’t tolerate the senior lecturers or the people with PhDs. Due to this same reason, five senior lectures have left the university since the beginning of this faculty in 2013. Now she is running the faculty with two Professors, four senior lectures and 32 probationary lectures (when this 32 probationary lectures are considered, few are bearing MSc’s and others have just completed their university with their basic degrees).This is the situation of the faculty, and more than 500 students are being taught by inexperienced incompetent probationary lecturers who have just passed their university degrees.

In addition to this, illegal malpractices are common in this faculty. Although it is stated that exams and academic activities are conducted according to the UGC standards, it is very sad to see that UGC system has not being adhered at all. For example, in state universities, after every exam, academic staff gets at least six weeks of time for paper marking.  However, in this faculty academic staff gets only a maximum of ten days, & frequently less than that for paper marking. Due to this reason standards and quality of marking has been immensely compromised.

As an example; recent semester end exam finished on 23/01/2015 and faculty Dean advised all the academic staff members to submit results on 28/01/2015 (that batch contained 80 Nursing students, 25 Radiography students, 25 Pharmacy students,  25 Physiotherapy students and 25 Medical laboratory science students with 9 or more subjects for each stream)

As mentioned above, this is not only impossible but also compromising the standard/quality of education and it is sad to see that this is happening in a University. Moreover, failing to accomplish this target means holding inquiries or disciplinary actions against staff members.

Preparation of exam papers is also problematic. Although there are setters and moderators (some of the moderators are external), even after the paper moderation by external moderators, the Dean gathers all the academic staff in a conference room and scrutinize the questions again. Of course there are lots of issues in that practise; mainly the Dean is not specialised in all the subjects (She’s a MBBS Doctor), and also it’s an insult to the moderator because the person who’s moderating question papers is the specialised person for that particular subject. Another issue with gathering all the academic staff for that occasion means anyone can pass the paper to outside before the exam. In state universities after the moderation of the paper there is no scrutiny board. Even if there is a scrutiny, only the Dean and staff members involved in preparing the questions should be there, not all the staff.

Recently this faculty moved to Werahera from Ratmalana (19/11/14).  There are no laboratories or libraries in the new premises and students are facing huge problems to get a meal, since there is no proper canteen. It’s appalling since students are paying fees for poor facilities and also for poor education standards.

All these problems are due to the faculty Dean and her horrible ways of handling matters. To say the least, she is a psychopath. All the professors who have joined this faculty after retiring from state universities absolutely denounce her idiotic behaviour.  Also, she’s trying to ignore all the educated senior academic staff and bulling them till they leave the faculty.

Above are a few examples of the problems that the academic members of this faculty facing, and due to this reason it’s very difficult to make a positive change that would benefit students and eventually a better standard education.

By Affected Staff Members

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by     (2015-02-11 21:00:00)