The Hon. (Dr.) Madhura Senevirathna - Deputy Minister of Education and Higher Education

¶ 01 [3.21 p.m.]

¶ 02 Madam Presiding Member, first I thank Hon. Rohana Bandara for this Motion.

¶ 03 The specific issue is to establish a course of action to prevent misuse of “Professor” and “Doctor,” through the UGC. Existing UGC circulars already state: the titles Professor, Senior Professor and Doctor may be used only during university service. After retirement or resignation, one may use only “Professor Emeritus” if conferred by the relevant governing authority, and this should be reflected in appointment and promotion letters. Thus, during active service, titles apply; post-service, only the conferred emeritus status applies. The procedure for conferring emeritus status is set out in UGC Circular 12/2021 of 21.12.2021 with guidelines.

¶ 04 A further problem is institutions outside the UGC framework awarding “doctorates” and “professorships” without due process. This cannot be addressed by the UGC alone. The Higher Education Policy Drafting Committee is now actively working to register all awarding bodies—public, private and non-state—in a single registry. Currently some are registered under BOI, some with the Registrar of Companies, others nowhere at all, yet they confer “honorary professor” or “doctor” titles which are then used publicly. We will bring all such entities into one regulated framework, register them, and prescribe proper standards; without compliance, they will not be permitted to award such titles. The UGC has clear academic pathways for honorary conferrals within universities; we will extend oversight to non-UGC entities via the new policy and regulatory instruments.

¶ 05 Accordingly, we accept the spirit of the Motion and will proceed with comprehensive registration and regulation, while reinforcing existing UGC rules on title usage and emeritus conferral.