The Hon. Dayasiri Jayasekara, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I am pleased to speak after the Hon. Member who just contributed. She asked us not to politicize this. Yet your own policy document “A Prosperous Country – A Beautiful Life,” page 17, expressly proposes changing how VCs are appointed to avoid political considerations—while in practice, you have politicized appointments.

¶ 02 A former activist for your party at Kelaniya University’s Social Sciences Faculty is now the Acting Vice Chancellor of the Yakkala University of Indigenous Medicine. The University of Colombo’s VC is a former chair of your trade union. I will leave it at that—politicization is not on our side.

¶ 03 I also refer to the “University Governance, Autonomy and Accountability: Directions for Change” workshop report, to which our Prime Minister (then an Open University academic) contributed. Please see pages 25–26: it discusses appointments to the UGC, University Councils, Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors, Deans, and Heads of Departments. You have cherry-picked only “Heads of Departments” for Council appointment—this is how politicization enters.

¶ 04 Traditionally, HoDs were proposed by the department itself and appointed by the VC, then Deans were elected by HoDs by vote. You now remove that and push eligibility further down the ladder—from Senior Professor, Professor, Associate Professor, Senior Lecturer (Gr. I), Lecturer, etc.—and, with term restrictions, create shortages where some faculties lack enough senior staff to fill Dean or HoD roles. Administration of universities cannot be handed to those with minimal experience. This approach is flawed.