News
‘Undernourished’ state unis. no match for private unis. in attracting academics
While authorities steamrolled towards the establishment of new private universities, to make Sri Lanka the ‘Education Hub of Asia’ with ‘world class education’, medical Faculties of state-run universities are receiving little attention and lacking resources.
This week, the Health Ministry agreed to make state hospitals available to the medical students of a fee-levying private medical school, the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine, for their clinical training.
The newest medical faculty, that of Rajarata University, still functions with a skeleton staff, eight years after its establishment. Except for one dept., all the other depts. operate without a single professor.
Rajarata University established in 2006, has already produced two batches of graduates. A majority of the depts function without senior lecturers, and are being managed by probationary lecturers, despite continual pleas by undergraduates to remedy the situation. Ruhuna University is also experiencing an academic-drain, with lecturers leaving for greener pastures in private medical schools coming up in the country.
There are close to 1,000 students enrolled under five different batches at Rajarata University’s medical faculty, which is the third largest in the State university system, but lacks the required academic cadre to match its student numbers. Unlike the Colombo and Peradeniya medical Faculties, which have standard Lecturer: undergraduate ratio, Rajarata University has only 21 permanent faculty members. They have re-employed four retired professors and one senior Lecturer. All other academic requirements are met through visiting lecturers and Consultants from State hospitals in the province.
While junior or probationary lecturers can tutor in a faculty, only a professor can conduct examinations and mark papers. At present, Rajarata University relies on qualified faculty members of other medical Faculties to set and mark papers. Assessment methods and undergraduate: Lecturer ratios are two of the basic criteria when determining the quality of a university on the world stage, where the Higher Education Ministry plans to compete, to attract foreign students.
However, Higher Education Ministry secretary, Dr Sunil Nawaratne doesn’t believe there is a serious cadre shortage in the Rajarata medical faculty.
He claimed there are an adequate number of faculty members to teach the undergraduates and, when needed, visiting lecturers cover the syllabi, while stressing that the faculty was established haphazardly without any proper planning.
“We now focus on student-centred learning where students can go online and learn too. The universities are equipped with wifi and Internet to access different material and learn,” he said.
Dr. Nawaratne claimed that all medical students possess laptops and tablet (computers) to access online resources, and are encouraged to do so.
Student unions however disagree, and demand that the cadre shortfall is met immediately. To date, all attempts by the university administration to recruit new staff has failed, students claim.
Students are often left to their own devices when visiting lecturers are unable to travel to Rajarata for assignments. Rajarata medical Student Union President, Prasanna Sameera, a fourth-year undergraduate of the faculty, said that, ehrn nearing examinations, they didn’t even have visiting lecturers for some of the subjects.
“The authorities’ attempts at getting visiting lecturers is not helpful, as they only come once or twice a month at the most. If we have issues with the subject matter, we have to wait another month to clarify it with the Lecturer, and sometimes they don’t come again” said Sameera.
This issue has been brought to the attention of the authorities at the highest level, but solutions are slow to come. An undertaking given two years back to pay special allowances to the academic staff, is yet to be implemented.
“We have discussed this issue with various authorities, but have not found a solution yet. There are academics who would like to come, but won’t, for lack of suitable remuneration and other facilities,” explained Sameera.
Ruhuna University is facing a different issue with faculty members leaving to join fee-levying, private universities for better remuneration.
“Current remuneration and benefits to faculty members are not adequate to attract new cadre,” explained the Dean of the faculty of Medicine, Rajarata University, Prof Sisira Siribaddana.
Compounding this is the lack of other basic facilities for academic staff at Rajarata University.
“They even have to pay for their drinking water here. They can’t find admission to national schools for their children, when they come here. With very few facilities, it is very difficult to attract academics to the faculty,” said Prof Siribaddana.
According to a medical faculty professor of Ruhuna University, who declined to be named, “The salaries of Junior doctors with no experience, attached to the Health Ministry, are on par with the salaries of senior lecturers in a medical faculty.
“I have 20-years experience, and a student of mine, newly appointed to the ministry, will draw the same salary as I do. This discourages anyone from joining the academic staff. The authorities should seriously look into the salary anomalies,” the professor elaborated.
To mitigate the situation, the Higher Education Ministry has decided to reintroduce the allowance system, where a professor in the dept would receive Rs 100,000 as allowance, while a senior Lecturer would receive Rs 80,000 and a junior Lecturer Rs 50,000 as allowances.
This was proposed at the last meeting the undergraduates and the university administration had with Higher Education Minister, S.B. Dissanayake. The minister has also advised the administration to manage the payment within the university, without University Grants Commission involvement, the paper learnt.