UGC Chairman De Silva Must Go!
By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –December 23, 2016
Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole
Invitations to Expatriates to Return
The President during the health ministry budget debate has invited our doctors who have migrated to the West to return and serve.
Recall that on 1 Sept. 2015 the President announced a special policy statement in parliament promising a red carpet welcome to us expatriates who return. This was on the heels of the 100-point program of the new government. Point 94 promised reinstatement to victimized persons who returned. I had to flee twice, in 2006 and 2011, over safety concerns.
I was very enthusiastic about the changes in the offing and wanted to support them. I was just short of 63 years of age in the US. There is no retirement age there but here it was 65 for academics. I felt my mite was necessary. I took two years’ leave of absence. I thought I could put in my two years remaining here at Jaffna’s Engineering Faculty which was struggling with lack of staff. The two years’ pay loss was nothing compared to the free education I had received here.
Second Grade People Hiring Third Grade People
Alas! In the words of Dr. Michael Nelson, a top Analyst for the US Government:
“First Grade people hire first grade people and surround themselves with intelligent people. Second grade people hire third grade people.”
My application to University of Jaffna for a junior position (Senior Lecturer) was rejected. In 2010, in the aftermath of the war, the UGC effected a policy of absorbing those who returned. But the long-term effect of second rate people hiring third rate people is that the third rate people now want no qualified people.
Clueless UGC Chairman
The UGC Chairman Mohan de Silva is responsible. His qualification for office is questionable. Despite the powers conferred on the UGC by the Universities Act to regulate the administration of universities and uphold academic standards, de Silva says in three separate affidavits in the bad English characterizing the deteriorating university standards, “the Universities are separate legal entities and the UGC has not given power [sic.] to compel Higher Educational Institutions to do things by the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978.”
While hiding behind autonomy, when convenient, this autonomy is waived as when he forced the Open University VC to reduce tuition fees and when he advertised engineering vacancies for South Eastern University (SEUSL) in the Sunday Times. When I spoke to de Silva in Professor Carlo Fonseka’s presence, he was clueless about UGC Circulars and insisted that to be a professor one had to join as a lecturer, and there is no direct recruitment as professor.
SEUSL: Punishing Students to Safeguard Third Rate Academics
de Silva was defending asking a person who holds an Oxford DPhil and a professorial post abroad to come as a Senior Lecturer. This person had applied for the post of Professor responding to de Silva’s Sunday Times advertisement. He has authored many western textbooks and papers in far greater numbers than, I venture, any engineering professor here. Yet, he was asked to come for an interview for Senior Lecturer whereas he had responded to an advertisement for professor. He naturally refused. After turning him down, Senior Lecturers from other universities are now paid a fabulous bonus to come visiting, whereas this person would have commanded a lower salary and been a professor.
When students at SEUSL asked me to apply there because they had no one to teach electromagnetics, I declined saying I came back to live in Jaffna but would volunteer to come one day a week without pay and teach two courses. I communicated this to the Dean and VC through my former students who know them. But my offer was turned down. My volunteering would have interfered with paying friends to come as visitors with a hefty Rs. 150,000 a month bonus.
Unlawful Jaffna and Attorney General
The University of Jaffna to date has not fulfilled an order in 2010 to hire my wife (with a PhD degree under a Nobel Laureate) and me (with a higher doctorate). Its Selection Committees have incredibly found us unqualified although we both held professorships at a major US research university. Nor has it obeyed a directive made on 2 Feb. 2016 by the University Services Appeals Board (USAB) to pay me for the time I was VC-Jaffna and list me among past Vice Chancellors.
In the meantime, the Jaffna Council has objected to my application being rejected by the VC. It asked her to review the decision in July but she is stalling. The VC has disallowed questions from the Council, claiming that the Attorney General has ordered her not to discuss my case at the Council; even as she and the Attorney General make submissions to the USAB on behalf of the Council!
The Attorney General is behaving like a Shyster, ignoring that according to the Universities Act it is the Council that speaks for the University. Dr. Devansean Nesiah of the Council has queried the legitimacy of such submissions through a letter to the USAB. He has pointed out that the Universities Act in Article 28(2) states “The powers conferred on a University […] shall […], be exercised by its Council.”
How can the AG submit to court on behalf of the Council when the Council cannot know or discuss what is submitted on its behalf? The AG’s actions are contempt worthy of a Shyster.
