The Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) said yesterday the Higher Education Ministry had given priority to private education and not public education in the country and owing to this the country’s public education system could collapse.

“The Higher Education Minister is expected to represent the public education system and not private education. However he has become the mouthpiece for private universities. This is a big issue as it can create a serious threat to state sector higher education,” FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Devasiri said. We have decided to take our message to the academic community in other parts of the country and will decide on our next action in January and write to the minister about our concerns

He said FUTA had made several demands from the government this year including an increase in government allocation for higher education from 1.9 per cent to 6 per cent in the 2012 budget.

He said the university autonomy was lacking and was a growing concern among universities and there was a need for more job-oriented courses of study. He said these were some of the many concerns university teachers had faced.

“We have decided to take our message to the academic community in other parts of the country and will decide on our next action in January and write to the minister about our concerns,” he said. Mr. Devasiri said while the federation did not oppose private universities, the public higher education system faced issues that were not heeded by the Higher Education Ministry.

He said private higher education could be a threat to public higher education as has proven to be the case in developed countries such as Britain where study programmes were removed due to a lack of profit-worthiness. “The main drive is profit maximisation. Once education becomes a commodity there will be a serious threat to the public education system including the liberal arts which are not profit sensitive,” he said.

Source: Daily Mirror - Sri Lanka