US embassy cable - 05COLOMBO659

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000659 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, SCUL, CE, Political Parties 
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA:  UNIVERSITY EDUCATION:  SO MANY 
STRIKES, SO FEW DEGREES 
 
REF: COLOMBO 615 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (SBU) Despite a constitutional duty to ensure "universal 
and equal access to education at all levels," the state-run 
national university system in Sri Lanka, hamstrung by 
politicization, resource shortfalls and successive 
debilitating strikes, accommodated fewer than 14 percent of 
qualified secondary school graduates in 2004.  Intensive 
political opposition--primarily from government coalition 
partner Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)--has successfully 
shut down, at least for the time being, Government plans to 
accommodate some of the overflow by expanding the number of 
private degree-awarding institutions.  In the north, 
administrators and students at the University of Jaffna face 
some of the same challenges as their southern counterparts, 
with the added complication of the near-monolithic influence 
of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ideology. 
Although administrators and students seem to realize that the 
current education provided by the state-run university system 
does not adequately prepare a sufficient number of students 
for the competitive modern job market, any proposed reforms 
are certain to elicit vehement and well-orchestrated 
opposition from the JVP.  End summary. 
 
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UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: 
FREE BUT NOT UNIVERSAL 
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2.  (U) The responsibility of the Government of Sri Lanka 
(GSL) to provide free university education to all qualified 
citizens is, like so many other social entitlements enshrined 
in the Constitution, one that the GSL is hard put to satisfy 
adequately.  (Note:  Article 27 (2) (h) of the Constitution 
lists "the complete eradication of illiteracy and the 
assurance to all persons of the right to universal and free 
access to education at all levels" as one of numerous 
Directive Principles of State Policy guiding Parliament, the 
President and the Cabinet toward "the establishment of a just 
and free society."  End note.)  Constrained by resource 
shortfalls, hamstrung by divisive partisan politics, and 
plagued by recurrent and debilitating strikes, the 
overburdened state-run university system, which consists of 
13 regional universities and one extension school, could 
offer places to fewer than 14 percent of qualified secondary 
school graduates in 2004 (14,850 students out of the 108,000 
who passed the national examinations).  By offering 14 new 
degree programs, the University Grants Commission (UGC), 
which administers the national university system, expects to 
expand the number of slots available to 16,255 in 2005--a 
modest improvement that still leaves more than 90,000 
qualified students out of luck and out of school each year. 
(Note:  Not included in these statistics are the estimated 
additional 90,000 students who complete the requisite amount 
of advanced level schooling, sat for the national examination 
and do not pass.  If these students are added to the equation 
as well, the state-run university system accommodated just 
over 7 percent of competing secondary school students in 
2004.  Universities abroad, primarily in India, absorb about 
another 2 percent, according to UGC estimates.  End note.) 
 
 
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ON THE CURRICULUM: 
PARTISAN WRANGLING, STAGING STRIKES 
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3.  (U)  Once admitted to these elite ranks, students, 
especially lower-income students from outlying areas who must 
rely on state-funded dormitories for housing, are subject to 
intensive political lobbying-cum-indoctrination by the 
affiliated student wings of parties in control at particular 
dormitories, according to administration and student sources. 
 The student wing of the pro-Marxist Janatha Vimukthi 
Peramuna (JVP) has long been the most extensively organized 
and most influential group, particularly among liberal arts 
students.  The JVP union dominates the liberal arts schools 
of 11 of Sri Lanka's 13 national universities (Jaffna and 
Eastern Universities, in the predominantly Tamil north and 
east respectively, are the exceptions).  (Not surprisingly, 
the rigorous academic standards demanded of law, medical, 
engineering and (to some extent) management students have 
left little free time for politicking, and the JVP, according 
to most accounts, has thus not developed a substantial 
foothold among those populations.) Annual student elections 
provide a predictably bitter forum for partisan politics to 
polarize and divide student bodies, often resulting in 
physical clashes between groups, strikes to protest an 
unfavorable election result, or (more commonly) both. 
 
4.  (U)  Nor are strikes limited to protests against election 
outcomes.  Instead, student unions are commonly mobilized 
(again, most often by the JVP) to strike on a variety of 
pretexts, including a wide range of GSL policies.     A quick 
review of the current state of play at universities across 
the country on April 4 revealed the following: 
 
--Ruhuna University (in the southern district of Matara) 
closed for over a month due to student strikes; 
 
--Colombo University:  Arts and Law schools re-opened April 1 
after a 10-day closure imposed by strikes; Management school, 
on strike throughout March over student elections, scheduled 
tentatively to reopen April 18; 
 
--Sri Jayawardenapura University closed for 10 days in March 
due to clashes/strikes; closed again the first week of April 
due to ongoing political strife; 
 
--Peradeniya University (Kandy):  violence between pro- and 
anti-JVP students April 3 prompted a faculty decision to 
close down the campus for an undetermined amount of time; 
 
--University of Jaffna:  closed last week of March because of 
a strike by non-academic staff protesting the dismissal of 
the Registrar; strike by a rival union threatened for the 
first week of April. 
 
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JVP ISSUE DU JOUR:  "PRIVATIZATION" 
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5.  (SBU)  Most of the current strikes disrupting studies at 
universities over the past month were prompted by JVP 
opposition to administration plans to address the shortage of 
university slots by allowing selected private institutions to 
award degrees in some fields.  About 10 such 
"degree-granting" institutions have already been recognized 
by the UGC.  According to UGC Chairman B.R.R.N. Mendis, 
however, President Kumaratunga directed that applications 
from another five be kept on hold after vigorous opposition 
to the proposed expansion from JVP-aligned student groups, 
who have branded the initiative as yet another GSL attempt at 
"creeping privatization."  A member of an opposing student 
union speculated that the JVP, which views the state-run 
university system as its exclusive breeding ground for future 
die-hard politicos, sees the move as potentially undermining 
the party's monopolistic grip on young students.  Private 
degrees will not be free, the student reasoned, leaving 
candidates in those programs little spare time to engage in 
strikes and other political activities.  UGC Chairman Mendis 
voiced the same theory, and offered the following additional 
interpretations: (a)  Recipients of private degrees may prove 
more competitive in the global job market than those educated 
by the public sector; (b) GSL failure to meet the demand for 
university slots strengthens JVP claims of Government 
mismanagement/malfeasance/disregard for the masses. 
 
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VIEW FROM JAFFNA: 
NO JVP, BUT STILL STRIKING 
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6.  (SBU) The University of Jaffna, while spared a 
hyperactive, strike-prone JVP student union, faces other 
significant challenges.  Students there are free from the 
worries and disruptiveness of partisan politics on campus; 
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) proivdes the only 
political ideology on offer.  (Note:  The JVP student wing 
maintains a nominal branch at the Jaffna campus as well, but 
it is not politically active.  End note.)  According to 
University Vice Chancellor Professor S. Mohanadas, students 
in Jaffna "strike frequently" (usually to protest some step 
by the GSL or the Sri Lankan Army--Army vehicle accidents are 
a common pretext) "but not very long."  A strike during the 
last week of March was called by one union representing 
university staff to protest the dismissal of the Registrar; a 
rival union, on the other hand, threatened to strike if the 
Registrar were reinstated.  Despite these mutually exclusive 
demands, Professor Mohanadas expressed confidence that the 
issue would soon be resolved. 
 
7.  (SBU)  The national standard imposed on northern 
students--who must complete their secondary education in 
sub-standard facilities--creates wide disparity, the Vice 
Chancellor indicated.  While the south may suffer from a 
surfeit of too many qualified students and too few slots, the 
north has the reverse problem:  too few students even qualify 
for admission.  Because students from the north are typically 
weaker in English than their southern counterparts, he noted, 
many local applicants cannot pass the examination.  Mohanadas 
said that he had requested the UGC to grant an additional 5 
percent quota for students from especially underprivileged 
areas (i.e., the LTTE-controlled Wanni) in the budget for 
2006.  Similar previous requests have been turned down by the 
UGC, he reported, on the grounds that slots for southern 
students would also have to be increased commensurately. 
 
 
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COMMENT 
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8.  (SBU)  A surplus of 93,000 advanced level graduates kept 
out of the university system is clearly a need that the 
private sector can help fill.  Competition among private 
institutions could help ensure higher standards and graduates 
better equipped to meet the needs of a global marketplace. 
This is not, however, a need that the JVP, despite its 
rhetoric about helping the masses, finds politically 
expedient to meet.  A more competitive university system 
could reduce the JVP's virtually unopposed grazing rights 
among student populations, thereby inhibitiing its ability to 
expand its membership and entrench its hold among 
well-educated but under-employed Sri Lankan youth.  As with 
other proposed reforms (Reftel), the JVP can be expected to 
invoke the "privatization" bete noir to keep this eminently 
sensible GSL initiative at bay. 
 
 
LUNSTEAD