Business Times

Dilemma of university teachers

For many years, most university academics have been criticised for teaching less in universities and more outside. They have also been blamed for blocking changes in curricula to keep abreast with modern standards and making graduates employable, out of concern that they would be lumped with more work.

The latest action however by the Federation of University Teachers (FUTA) to step down from their administrative positions because of the government’s failure to provide a wage hike as promised, some years back, has thrown some light on their plight and brought to focus what they actually do.
And this is contrary to what the public and the media believe or was led to believe as the role of university teachers.

In a well-crafted article carried in a local newspaper this week, a Peradeniya University don explains that there is often a misunderstanding of the role of a university teacher. “Casual observers of universities may believe that teaching and research are the only duties of a university teacher when, in fact, it is the case that much of his or her time is spent on these voluntary positions for which the financial remuneration is next to nothing or literally nothing,” wrote Liyanage Amarakeerthi, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sinhala.

These voluntary positions include the Dean of a Faculty, director/rector of an institution, head of a department, coordinator of a programme, editor of a journal, chairperson and members of a committee, Senior Student Counsellor, members of a study board, proctor, deputy proctor, and so on. These positions are so great in number and so essential to the working of a university that one begins to wonder why anyone should do these for free, he argued.

“It is even a euphemism or a misnomer to call it ‘voluntary’ since once you ‘voluntarily’ accept those positions you are held responsible for everything about them,” he said. “There are many of us who work more than three years in those positions because we want these institutions to survive as havens for higher learning. Some teachers work for years on end in positions such as Senior Student Counsellors simply because they want to help their students.”

The state university education structure is no better than the country’s secondary education systems which are complicated, complex and children often used as ‘experiments’. It is poorly managed, has no quality-assurance standard and teachers are virtually ‘protected’ because their salaries are paid no matter even if they are the worst of the lot.

One of the problems in the system is that if a company produces a service that service should be sold at a price. In the case of universities, it produces a service (education) and whether it is good or bad, that service is fully utilized (by students) but not paid for.

Some university teachers acknowledge that they teach elsewhere and undertake consultancies, in addition to their in-house duties, as the remuneration is low and there is little or no rewards in the system.

“If we don’t do well or don’t teach well there is no punishment or penalty. If we do well too there is no reward or little recognition,” one lecturer said. Sri Lanka was once the best paymaster in universities against the rest of South Asia. However, over the years India, with wage scales for a senior professor of, Indian Rs 100,000 per month and Bangladesh have overtaken Sri Lanka where a senior professor gets around Rs 76,000 before tax deductions.

A junior lecturer starts at around Rs 26,000 per month after years of study and graduation – so much so that if a lecturer did his graduate studies abroad, the wage is hardly enough to pay back loans taken for education. One of the main problems is that Sri Lankan universities have responsibilities but not powers which are vested in the state through the University Grants Commission.

“Universities need to have both and be independent institutions permitted to raise their own funds,” said the lecturer from Colombo University. Academics argue that the government should move out of the control of universities in a phased-out manner and cite another problem – the Treasury subsidy.

If a university is able to raise part of its revenue on its own, the Treasury subsidy is cut, which academics argue is unfair. “This means that universities whose staff is either lazy or don’t have the competence to raise their own revenue, gets the same Treasury subsidy without cuts. If this is the case, there is no motivation for the revenue-earning institutions to collect its own funds,” one academic noted.

Universities, it is argued, should be made autonomous bodies, allowed to raise their own funds, select their students – based on an entry level test – and permitted to take fee-levying foreign students. Instead of the Treasury subsidizing the universities, that money could be channeled to deserving students, a move which is certain to improve standards, the quality of teaching and the quality of the staff.
Over the years the universities have lost the most qualified people because of the brain drain, the war and the inability to reward and recognize. Nevertheless, there are many qualified and brilliant academics who chose to remain in Sri Lanka despite tempting offers elsewhere.

The latest crisis in universities involving the teachers has, if at all, brought to the fore what they actually do and not what they are perceived to be doing. If the Government is prepared to sign a virtual blank cheque to pay hefty wage hikes to political appointees like heads of corporations, why can’t they do the same for the men and women who groom and guide the country’s future talent and create the pool of human resource?

Not doing so is like ignoring the much-publicised knowledge hub. What purpose is a knowledge hub if the knowledge-providers are not decently looked after?

Top to the page  |  E-mail  |  views[1]
SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
 
Other Business Times Articles
Movable property as collateral against loans
Europe, developing world battle over IMF post
Sri Lanka expects upward revision in sovereign ratings
Grand Oriental Hotel deal to be finalised in two months
Some 7,000 GK depositors receive 2nd repayment
CB to further clarify bank loan-for-stocks rule
Tokyo bourse team to visit SL tomorrow
Showers of blessings
Comment - Dilemma of university teachers
Not more regulation but conformity with ILO Conventions and Workers’ Charter essential
TRC in preliminary round to ring in number portability
Right of Rreply - ‘Most investors in Sri Lanka trade on inside information’
Leading Indian cancer care provider seeks investor in Sri Lanka
Further extension of brokers’ credit stuns small investors
NDB 1Q11 YoY Group PAT doubles
CDB fosters IT literacy in remote Jaffna school
Discussion on Carbon crisis at ST Business Club
Correction - “Now it’s Rs 5 mln an acre for Kuchchaveli Investors”
Motivational speaker Craig Valentine talks leadership in Colombo
Investors cry foul over changing rules overnight
ICASL new headquarters, costing Rs 360 mln on 40,000 sq feet
Biggest GDP growth between 2004:08 came from price hikes, not real economic growth : economics teacher
Double digit revenue drop, after tax loss at former Watapota
First Capital 4Q10 group after tax profits double
BOC expands in India targeting businessmen, 60,000 Sri Lankan refugees
DIMO 12-month group revenues up 179%
Oil prices hit a snag sky high!
First quarter GDP growth within targets: Central Bank
Parquet to launch hyper market for building material
Kingslake software to increase productivity of tea exporters
Uva Wellasa University architect ends term after trail-blazing adventure in education
New SriLankan Airlines A320 touches down in Colombo
Janaki appointed to World Bank committee on agriculture finance
CB ‘figures’ on war and post war
Maldives pulls out of New7Wonders of nature contest
Behavioural Economics or Social Marketing? The Latter!
Maldives a ‘technology lab’ towards reducing carbon in the world

 

 
Reproduction of articles permitted when used without any alterations to contents and a link to the source page.
© Copyright 1996 - 2011 | Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka. All Rights Reserved | Site best viewed in IE ver 8.0 @ 1024 x 768 resolution