No ‘natives and dogs’ permitted at Kotelawela Defence University!

We are in urgent need to produce sufficient doctors to maintain the health services of the country. In 2018, our country had a total of 24,118 outbound internationally mobile tertiary students, including those studying abroad in all fields, according to the World Bank

The country learned with shock that the Kotelawala Defence University is to ban the entry of local medical students into that institution. Believe it or not, it is the government led by none other than Comrade Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his merry band of JVPers who are behind the move.

Now why oh why, is the local university named after a past premier deciding to ban aspiring Sri Lankan medical students, out of this university? Old timers who were at the Galle Face Hotel years ago, according to the late Rukman Senanayake, well remember an instance when then Colonel Kotelawala stood up to a Britisher.

Apparently, the good colonel had seated himself at a table where a Britisher felt was his reserved domain. The Englishman from across the room shouted at Sir John, “Anything you do to that chicken sir, I will do to you...”

With great aplomb, Sir John stood up in front of the on-looking guests, stuck his forefinger up the rear end of the chicken and sucked it with gusto. Turning red, the Englishman hurriedly scurried out of the dining hall

Well, that quality of our country’s leaders seems to be coming to an end. Now we will build universities to cater solely to foreign medical students, at the expense of the ‘natives’. The issue came under fire in parliament a few days ago (22.05.2025) when our president, who until March last year was popularly referred to as ‘Anura sahodaraya’, through his ministers informed us, Lankan students will not be welcomed into the KDU campus. 

In our country, we are facing a dearth of doctors. In June 2024, the GMOA reported that approximately 20 rural hospitals had already closed due to a lack of doctors, with a potential for another 50 to close soon. The GMOA also warned that 100 hospitals and specialist units were at risk of closure. This situation is largely attributed to the emigration of doctors, with 842 doctors and 274 specialists leaving the country between June 2022 and May 2023.  

We all know, when the JVP was in the opposition, they opposed the setting up of private medical colleges on frivolous grounds. In power and facing the stark reality of a failing health system, should not Comrade Dissanayake and his party make an about-turn? After all, they now even believe in the IMF diktat as a panacea for our ills.

We are in urgent need to produce sufficient doctors to maintain the health services of the country. In 2018, our country had a total of 24,118 outbound internationally mobile tertiary students, including those studying abroad in all fields, according to the World Bank. 

At the University of Leicester Medical School for example, if you live in a non-EU country, the tuition fee for the medical degree (MBChB) is £29,000 per year for the first two years, then £47,000 for each of the years 3, 4 and 5.

Rather than promoting exclusive tuition fee-levying university facilities to foreign medical students, the government could offer these same facilities to fee-paying local students as well. Thereby saving much needed foreign exchange. The government could also reserve a percentage of paying seats for foreign students in other medical universities in the country as well.

The sons and daughters of the rich and powerful study medicine abroad. Some even at universities in Bangladesh. They receive medical degrees in those countries, face the N-16 exam here, and now practice in government hospitals. 

If it is government’s desire to earn hard cash by inviting foreign students into the KDU, it is perhaps to be applauded. But why prevent the sons of the soil the same opportunity?

In this way, the country will not only save valuable foreign exchange flowing out of the country, but would help increase the number of doctors coming our of our universities on an annual basis.

Though it is not well known today, in the ‘bad old days’, a particular swimming club as late as in the 1960s had a notice on its gate “No natives or dogs allowed”. Some private hospitals too did not cater to the ‘natives’. Is our newly elected socialist government heading down this path?