Playing the numbers game for University Entrance is playing politics and fooling the people

The UGC just announced that 27600 students have now won places to enter the NO FEE State Education System for which we all Sri Lankan pay a very high price. They said it was an increase of 2,200 from the last intake, saying by deduction that more places are being created, either by building more Universities, or new faculties and expansion of facilities.

Any person with the knowledge of comparison with quality tertiary facilities of the private/public sector, such as Kotelawala Defence University, NSBM Green University and other fully private establishments in Sri Lanka, will know how WOEFUL the facilities of these Universities are.

Yes for a Country which wastes a lot of its wealth on corruption, and show events, improving Education and Health Care is NOT the priority. However, we must at least produce EMPLOYABLE Graduates in preference to increasing the number of UNEMPLOYABLE Graduates, which this UGC boast will INEVITABLE result in.

PLEASE look at each courses for relevance. Improve the facilities available to students where courses WILL directly lead to employment so that they can be MORE productive, and therefore MORE in demand from their prospective employers. Isn’t this the need of the hour, over the NUMBERS game the UGC is indulging in, for possibly political motivations?

We need better faculty, better paid, and with good teaching skills. There MUST be methods of students assessing their faculty anonymously, so that the fraudulent faculty will be found out. This will enable a system of self policing to ensure that the faculty don’t moonlight because the private universities pay better, and they fraudulently take two incomes, by shortchanging the State Sector, a practice that is commonplace in the Sri Lanka University System at present.

WE as in the Government owes the undergraduates, a duty to give them an education, that creates the person, that creates a productive citizen for the Country, as it is an investment by many people, all through the Country from people, most of whom never went to University, to put someone else’s son or daughter through the University System. This fact is often ignored, and must be laid clear on day one when an undergraduate enters the University system, that he or she owes a duty to the people who have paid their fees, so that they can study without paying.