World AIDS Day is passed. Let’s begin forgetting again.
This was the first World AIDS Day I chose to ignore. The first World AIDS Day that I tried to boycott. Every year since I got into this business, December 1st has…
Education
How The Well-born Have Been Failing To Ennoble Our National Character
Democracies are unabashedly commercial and practical. This is probably as it should be. It is futile to demand that creative curiosity be the hallmark of democracies, or to imagine that the modern…
Bully Boys and Bully Girls
A few evenings ago, parents were invited to our son’s school which goes up to Grade 8 for a presentation on Bullying. Dr. Tina Daniel, Asst Professor of Psychology at Carleton University…
Militarisation of Sri Lanka and its infiltration into Higher Education
Evidence of militarisation is everywhere – most recently in the sphere of higher education. The armed forces are involved with development projects, in welfare, and in farming. They are even involved in…
An appeal against infringement of university autonomy in Sri Lanka
The Ministry of Higher Education has issued a directive that all state universities should hire the services of Rakna Lanka Ltd for provision of security services. The undersigned of the University academic…
Programme to Develop Leadership Training and Positive Thinking: Perspective of a Participant
Having participated in the “Leadership Training and Positive Skills Development Programme” I feel the need to give an account of my experience and views on the programme as there was much debate…
University Students, Military and the Leadership Programme: Observations on the First Session
[Editors note: exclusively published the full syllabi of the leadership training course. Access them here.] The highly contentious compulsory leadership training programme for university entrants was inaugurated on the 23rd of May….
Exclusive: Syllabi and timetables from compulsory University ‘leadership’ training course
Image from Virakesari Online. [Since the time this article was first published, the service used to host the embedded PDFs requires registration and a fee to download the documents locally. All of…
‘BE YOUNG AND SHUT UP!’: A COURSE IN CIVIC DISENGAGEMENT
‘ . The idea that this form of indoctrination should be forced upon university students, and its acceptance by many in the country, is a remarkable detraction from what we strive…
Perspectives and Commentary on the Leadership Training Programme for University Undergraduates
[Author’s note: As you are probably aware the leadership training for undergraduates is now well under way in 28 military installations around the country. Although the government has stated that this will be…
Sri Lanka May Yet Be Lost, or Saved
Original photo Ranga Sirilal | Reuters Two years after the comprehensive defeat of the LTTE, the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war is still playing itself out. Take the events of the…
Removing the Emperor’s Clothes
Original image from Lanka Polity Universities, academics and university students have been hogging the limelight in the last several weeks in unprecedented ways. The Rajapakse regime’s systematic destruction of the higher education…
Some Reflections on the Trade Union Action by the FUTA
The ongoing trade union action by the Federation of the University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) has drawn the attention of the entire nation. Cutting across the ethnic boundaries which have hitherto divided them…
It is time to decide on Sri Lanka’s university system
The trade union action called by the Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA), has once again highlighted the crisis in our universities. Unfortunately it is the strikes, the clashes and the protests…
ICTs, science fiction and disasters: A conversation with Nalaka Gunawardene
I last spoke to Nalaka Gunawardene on public television in February 2009. Nalaka’s varied interests and experience is hard to pin down, but the issues he most often writes on are anchored…