Prez’s move to privatize education is a joke: IUSF

In a country where pins to bulldozers and eggs to national flags are imported by paying dollars, it is a joke when the President is trying to privatize local university education in a bid to stop dollars flowing out as a result of students seeking foreign education, the IUSF said.

The Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) said the President’s latest gimmick is to introduce more and more private universities in the country through attempts to find more state hospitals for clinical practices of certain selected private universities.

Convener IUSF Wasantha Mudalige addressing a press briefing yesterday said at present the government is importing all essential and non-essential items like rice, sugar, salmon, eggs, fruits and vegetables, sweets and other goods by paying dollars.

And one of the most common complaints of the government in the recent past is to curtail the number of students leaving the country for overseas education, concerning the amount of dollars they have to pay for these overseas universities and colleges.

“Ranil Wickremesinghe has made a decision to identify more state hospitals to facilitate clinical practices for the Kotelawala Defence University, Dr. Neville Fernando Hospital, Lyceum Campus and other universities.

Has he any idea what sort of difficulties the students in the present state universities are going through in getting their already arranged clinical practices at leading teaching hospitals,” Mudalige questioned.

People didn’t give a mandate to the government to act on their own to privatize education let alone the incumbent president was not appointed through a people’s mandate. “Since Ranil is already on his way out, and by doing these kinds of things we make sure that he will not stay for long. Every government that tried to privatize education in this country had to leave office ultimately,” he said.