Minister Kiriella: Engineering At Oluvil To Be Closed And Students Shifted

November 27, 2015

When the Ceylon College of Technology was upgraded to the University of Ceylon, Katubedde Campus (now University of Moratuwa) it was backwater. Since then it has taken strides forward and is the first preference for nearly all of those admitted to engineering. How did Moratuwa catch up with Peradeniya and overtake it? This is because engineering needs striving industries close by to drive student research and most academics prefer to live in the city close to amenities, schools, and consultancy opportunities. This is why Ruhuna’s engineering is still badly short staffed, despite the city of Galle close by, and never took off despite the Minister of Higher Education, Richard Pathirana, pouring millions into that faculty in his electorate.

Minister Kiriella

Similarly, when University of Jaffna planned an engineering faculty, both Prof. L.L. Ratnayake and Prof. K.K.Y.W. Perera wrote reports urging that it be sited in the city of Jaffna or close to it.

However, the LTTE had planned Arivu Nagar in Kilinochchi as a university town and many felt compelled to argue for Arivu Nagar even after the LTTE was gone.

The experience of the one big University of Sri Lanka was that campuses had to practically shut down regularly when all Department Heads and Professors had to come to Colombo for Senate meetings, recruitment and promotion committee meetings, leave applications, etc. A multi-campus university with one Vice Chancellor turned out to be a foolish venture, and the campuses soon became independent universities. Yet, despite this experience, Jaffna’s engineering faculty ended up in South Kilinochchi, 80 km away from the administration in Tinnavely, with the university already having problems managing the Vavuniya Campus 140 km away. It meant Assistant Registrars, Assistant Bursars, Assistant Librarians, libraries, play grounds, and hostels being duplicated and triplicated.

Similarly, when the Z-score fiasco occurred in 2012, one hundred more engineering students had to be admitted, and students were admitted before recruiting the staff out of political rather than academic considerations. The faculty went to Oluvil, 350 km from Colombo, adding one more campus to the already two-campus South Eastern University, Sri Lanka. The isolation meant more serious problems than in Jaffna.

Helping Kilinochchi, Oluvil, and places develop is a laudable goal. But why should a few hundred students bear the brunt when all of us need to contribute? Moreover, at the expense of ruining the hard earned reputation of our engineering degree, which will plummet when untrained engineers are certified? Would the UGC accredit a foreign university coming in with the staff and infrastructure as at Oluvil?

Today we have the Jaffna and Oluvil Engineering faculties being run without staff. Visiting lecturers do not like to come because of travel time. Most Jaffna staff members live in Jaffna and the Dean in Vavuniya. The problems are even more severe in Oluvil. Many staff members live in Colombo, locating their children there in good schools. There are often no classes Monday to Friday, and on weekends students often wait for visiting lecturers who do not show up because of the weather or this or that. Oluvil’s engineering students have given up on the university and stopped attending classes. These are our best students in the maths stream.

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