The Dons speak up
The demand by the country's academics for a salary increase has been continuing since 2008. Their main demand is that their basic salaries be increased. More than 10 rounds of discussions have been held, but no solution reached.
Earlier, it was the Higher Education Ministry that was handling the negotiations. The academics have lost faith in dealing with it. Now, the President's Secretary has stepped in as a mediator to resolve matters. He met the members of FUTA (Federation of University Teachers Associations) on July 3 and said he wanted a week's time to study the latest proposals on resolving the issue. A second meeting was held on Thursday (July 12), but no headway has been made, with still more time asked for.
A suggestion has been made by the President's Secretary for a Presidential Commission on Higher Education, but given the obvious credibility, or rather the lack of it, of commission reports, FUTA is not interested. The academics agree there is a need to go into the wider issues of higher education, but their salary issue must be given priority.
FUTA claims it has a membership of 4,500 academics or 80 per cent of the country's academics in the state universities. Its members have been on strike since July 4. With the exception of a few faculties, including the Colombo Medical Faculty, most other campuses are affected by the strike.
The intimidation of its president by having unidentified persons hovering around his house, has further angered FUTA members. The academics say they have no intention of ending the strike until they get some concrete proposals from the Government. The President's Secretary told them on Thursday the academics were not being treated as just any other trade union by the Government. Their role in society is a special one. So be it, and so should the Government treat this continuing problem that has been allowed to drag on partly due to stubbornness on the part of the University Grants Commission, but largely due to the inefficiency and arrogance of the Ministry of Higher Education.
The issue is, however, not one exclusively restricted to the salaries of these academics. It may be outside the mandate of FUTA to insist that the Government stick to 6 per cent of the budget being allocated to education, but it is justified in asking that ad hoc decisions by the ministry be done away with and collective decision-making be undertaken in terms of the University Act. Furthermore they have asked that the autonomy of the universities be respected. Political meddling has been the bane of independent institutions across the board in this country and the universities are no exception.
No wonder then, that the seats of higher learning in Sri Lanka are going the same downward way as most other institutions that were once upon a time, respected and revered. No. 08, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 02. P.O. Box 1136, Colombo
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