Undergrads are flowers and must bloom! - EDITORIAL

e all know that those who enter university must gear up to receive an education with breaks in-between. These breaks are not the ones that undergrads enjoy as vacations, but the ones that are caused through disruptions. Undergrads themselves are the ones who cause these disruptions, but there are times when outsiders show sympathy for their cause.   
This is one such time. Among the several issues which are bugging the university system, the key among them, which is much spoken about these days, is the problem associated with students of South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM).  

It seems there is a breakthrough in this issues with a Gazette notification being issued by the President instructing the Kotalawela Defence University to absorb these SAITM students to pursue a medical degree. This gazette notification was approved in parliament following amendments.   
But the lives of these SAITM students which received a little sunshine have been damped again with the authorities of the Kotalawela Defence University demanding as much as Rs six million as the course fee to pursue this degree in medicine. One of the most beautiful features about university education in Sri Lanka is that it’s free. But in the face of university entrance being restricted to the very best, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) gave its blessings to SAITM to award degrees, a decision which was backed by the thought that if quality private education is available here at an affordable price students don’t have to migrate abroad to pursue higher education. Parents of these SAITM students have already started complaining about the monies demanded by the Kotalawela Defence University with one parent being quoted in the Daily Mirror saying that ‘Government has again misled us’.   

Another set of parents who are up in arms are protesting against the closure of the Peradeniya University. These parents are worried about the studies of their offspring because the university authorities have closed down the institute for a period of two months. What has annoyed these parents, who have formed a collective by the name of Parents’ Union of Medical Students (PUMS), is that their children have been punished for an issue which took place at the Engineering Faculty. University Education is such that camaraderie often supersedes personal ambition and this becomes the air that undergrads breath till they graduate. PUMS has to understand that what they should worry about, if at all, is if their children lose focus of their studies during these breaks caused by disruptions.  

University life has its interwoven cultures. Ragging is one and brings those who think high and mighty of themselves to one platform before life at the university begins. But a statement was made by the Higher Education and Cultural Affairs Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe that those who were ragged recently were subject to physical and sexual harassment. Ragging within the university is a jealously guarded secret with outsiders not given half a chance to witness what happens within the walls of these academic institutes. This writer remembers an incident where a photographer of a leading national newspaper escaping being caught and assaulted when he went to capture in reel undergrads being ragged. But those who engage in ragging must take note that it’s banned and amounts to a punishable offence. And when the minister warns that the ragging has overstepped the mark, it’s time to seriously take stock of the situation.   

The minister has also shown concerns regard the protests carried out by undergrads saying that there have been occasions when the intention of such gatherings hasn’t been pure. Minister Rajapakshe has accused undergrads of receiving funds from political groups. The denim clad, pony-tailed and often unshaven undergrads have to keep one foot in a lecture room and one on the streets; the latter in the face of threats to their rights to education. These vociferous undergrads must be protected. And when they bloom they promise to give the fragrance of flowers!