Author name: Hasini Lecamwasam

Quality assurance without quality enhancement: The irony of university QA

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Ramya Kumar According to the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Commission (UGC), quality assurance (QA) refers to “the means (i.e. the policies, attitudes, actions, procedures etc.), by which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that the standards and quality of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced”. An expansive […]

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A Robe Without Recognition: The Long Road to Educating Sri Lanka’s Bhikkhunis

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Anushka Kahandagamage Education is the right of every child. Yet somewhere between childhood and the robe, that right becomes precarious for many Buddhist women in Sri Lanka, threatening not only their social standing, but their fundamental access to learning and the institutional discrimination they face. This piece is not about Buddhist disciplinary rules, which discriminates

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Do we have a policy for higher education: A historical analysis

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Shamala Kumar Through a review of the history of national policy making on university education, this first of a two-part Kuppi Talk demonstrates the persistent lack of a strong and systematically formulated policy for Sri Lanka’s university system. PART I Free education and the birth of a free country “We contemplate generally that the cost

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‘There are no private universities in Sri Lanka’ – some considerations for higher education reform

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Kaushalya Perera Academics involved in education policy like to say that there is no such thing as a private university in Sri Lanka. The only ‘universities’ in the country are state universities; anything else offering degrees are private higher education institutions (HEIs). This position is technically accurate. Yet, in the discourse and imagination of the

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The Burden, and also Strength, of the Critical Scholar in the Humanities

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Nandaka Maduranga Kalugampitiya The biggest part of the challenge of a critical scholar in the humanities is having to engage critically with the very realities that define her existence as a social being.  She cannot even begin to comment on the focus of her study without creating shock waves that would hit her own self

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Pitfalls and Exclusions in Academic Recruitment

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Mahendran Thiruvarangan A public university relies on its teachers in fulfilling its responsibilities to the wider community. While teaching remains the chief responsibility of the academic staff, they also conduct research and play a central role in keeping the university a vibrant space where they and students can freely participate in conversations that concern not

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