Social Reconciliation Centres for state campuses this year: UGC

Universities will be required to introduce compulsory courses in leadership, ethics and social cohesion, and promote out-bound training, implement youth exchange programmes such as host- family schemes and establish reconciliation clubs this year.

The Unive r s i t y G r a n t s Commission (UGC) has instructed all state universities to establish Social Reconciliation Centres (SRC) for an initial time period of ten years.

“The UGC has launched a joint initiative with the President’s Office to establish SRCs in universities. The central purpose of a SRC is to promote the understanding of different religions and ethnicities while promoting the Lankan spirit rather than parochial identities,” the UGC Chairman Sampath Amaratunge said in a circular to all university vice chancellors and campus rectors.

“A rationale of establishing a SRC in universities is well recognised world over,” he said.

Even though the UGC plays a facilitator role, the operational aspects should be handled by each university, and suitable academic staff are requested to be appointed as SRC directors he added.

Contributing to the knowledge of research on post conflict social dynamics in the country by encouraging the academia to engage in reconciliation and peace building processes and share it with people in all three languages via print and electronic media, are among the objectives of the UGC, in establishing these SRCs.

The centres will have to build an offline or online platform for both internal and external collaboration and interaction between different universities and establish an online repository of research and findings.

The SRCs will have to organise cultural festivals, youth camps, multi-cultural events and conduct national and international conferences on conflict, peace and reconciliation.