The Hon. (Dr.) Harini Amarasuriya - Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education
Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, responding under Standing Order 27(2), provided student and staff figures for the institution and said it currently has 469 local students, one foreign student, and 25 staff vacancies. She stated that academic activities were suspended for internal students from 19 July 2024 due to ragging-related incidents involving senior monk-students and subsequent disciplinary action, including barring ten students from classes, followed by a temporary closure after an examination boycott. She said the situation was not due to institutional inefficiency, and that discussions with monk-students had produced agreement to restart academic activities on 15 March 2025 and remove temporary structures. She added that reported issues in the online second-semester examinations would be considered during evaluation and that examinations would resume after reopening.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, the answers under Standing Order 27(2) are as follows:
¶ 02 1. Student numbers:
¶ 03 Academic Year | Local | Foreign 2022/2023 | 164 | 01 2021/2022 | 137 | - 2020/2021 | 131 | - 2019/2020 | 37 | - Total | 469 | 01
¶ 04 2. Staff:
¶ 05 Category | Approved | In Service | Vacant Academic | 66 | 58 | 08 Non-Academic | 111 | 94 | 17 Total | 177 | 152 | 25
¶ 06 3. Yes. Due to ragging-related activities by senior monk-students against first-year monk-students and other disciplinary reasons, academic activities were closed to internal students only from 2024.07.19 with the approval of the Council.
¶ 07 Those involved were subjected to disciplinary sanctions, and on 2024.08.05 the Council decided to reopen in phases. Ten students were barred from attending classes. Due to a boycott of examinations scheduled for the 2022/2023 academic year, the University Council decided on 2025.01.10 to close the University temporarily.
¶ 08 4. The situation arose not due to institutional inefficiency but due to disciplinary action taken against ragging. The authorities acted accordingly, which led to this situation.
¶ 09 5. After further discussions with monk-students, both parties have reached a resolution and arrangements have been made to restart academic activities from 2025.03.15. Monk-students also agreed, in my meeting with them on 2025.02.27, to remove temporary structures erected by them.
¶ 10 6. With regard to the second semester examinations of 2022/2023 held online from 2025.02.10, attention was paid to incidents reported by respective Chief Invigilators. Examiners were instructed to proceed with evaluations taking these into account. Further action will be taken considering examiners’ reports. Examinations will commence after reopening on 2025.03.15.
¶ 11 Thank you.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Wednesday, 12 March 2025 ·No. 1744106534050382 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Harini Amarasuriya - Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 12 March 2025. No. 1744106534050382. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/9435