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Academics raise questions over non-appointment of ‘vocal’ members to Jaffna Uni. Council
Serious concerns are being expressed in academic circles that the University Grants Commission (UGC) has “conveniently” left out the vocal members in the Jaffna University Council when appointing new members on April 20.
In letters sent out by the UGC on April 20 appointing new members to the council, three former members who were sticklers to the rules whenever an issue arose for discussion, have been discarded, sources told the Sunday Times.
The 27-member council is the executive body and governing authority of the university. It comprises the Vice Chancellor (who presides at the meetings), the Rector, the Deans of each faculty and two members elected by the university’s Senate from among its members. In addition, another group of members is appointed by the UGC from outside, equivalent to those selected from within the university system plus one more.
The last category of members “shall be appointed by the Commission (UGC) from among persons who have rendered distinguished service in educational, professional, commercial, industrial, scientific or administrative spheres,” according to the Universities’ Act.
The three members who have been left out are eminent Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Prof. V. Tharmaratnam; a former Professor of History, Prof. S.K. Sitrampalam and well-known Oncologist Dr. N. Jeyakumaran who had diligently served the council from May 2015 to April 2018, sources said.
Three more members of the council, meanwhile, have also not been re-appointed, most probably due to their poor health condition, they pointed out.
Several sources alleged that the UGC has retained many of the “silent” members and even those whose attendance was poor to the chagrin of many including Vice Chancellor Prof. R. Vigneswaran.
In fact, Prof. Vigneswaran has sent a strong letter of protest to the Higher Education Minister objecting to the re-appointment of two members “who did not contribute to the previous council meetings, and came only to the meetings and once they collected the allowances, left”; another member who “is disturbing the meetings and agreed to memos,” submitted by a particular Dean but “opposes other memos and creates a lot of problems in the meetings,” and a fourth member whose “attendance was poor”.
Urging that those names have to be changed, the Vice Chancellor has requested that Dr. N. Jeyakumaran who attended every meeting, stayed till the end and contributed a lot as well as Dr. Sivanandarajah who is an experienced council member should be retained.
Dr. Jeyakumaran held discussions on a link programme with the Professors of Brunel University when he visited the United Kingdom which was followed by a visit from those officials to the Jaffna University, points out Prof. Vigneswaran, adding that the two institutions are in the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding.
When asked, Prof. Tharmaratnam who has been in the university system since 1958 serving long years as Professor of Mathematics at the Colombo and then the Jaffna Universities and later as Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Jaffna University, explained that when a new university council has to be appointed, all sorts of names are proposed by politicians and civil society. However, the council needs to be balanced, for those appointing the council (in this case the UGC) are bound by law not to make arbitrary selections. The selection process by the UGC has to be reasonably transparent.
This was a view echoed by Dr. Jeyakumaran and many other sources who spoke to the Sunday Times.
Numerous sources were of the view that these three members of the earlier council — Prof. Tharmaratnam, Prof. Sitrampalam and Dr. Jeyakumaran — have been left out in the cold for a number of reasons.
“They have spoken out strongly against alleged large-scale sexual harassment of female students by certain lecturers who were allegedly abusing their position,” said some sources, while others pointed out that they have also stood firm against alleged attempts to fill a vacancy for a Probationary Lecturer in the Faculty of Management with a person who was related to a university employee but was said to be “substandard” when compared to another highly-qualified suitable candidate. The alleged questionable selection of another candidate to fill a vacancy in the Department of Art and Design has also been severely criticized by them.
The three members, meanwhile, have been actively working to reveal the culprits involved in the robbery of 36 teak trees from the Kilinochchi campus, which was “discovered by accident” in 2015, it is learnt, as well as spoken out against the alleged fraud at the university’s Media Centre in 2017.
Several attempts by the Sunday Times to contact the hierarchy of the UGC proved futile.