By Ramya Kumar Over seven years after making an initial complaint of sexual harassment against her research supervisor, Dr. Udari Abeyasinghe, then a temporary lecturer and now a senior lecturer at the University of Peradeniya, has been finally served justice. On May 8, 2026, the Supreme Court made the following directions regarding Udari’s fundamental rights […]
Ahilan Kadirgamar The countryside and peripheral regions have been neglected in the national imagination for many decades. This has also been the case with regional universities which were seen as mere appendages to the university system, and sometimes created to appease political constituencies in the regions. The exclusion of the rural world and the institutions
Regional Universities Read More »
Shamala Kumar This Article is formed from listening to university students from across the country for two research initiatives, one on academic freedom and another on higher education policy. In speaking with students, the fears they carry could not be ignored. Students navigate university education, with anxieties about their future and fears that they and
The University Student Read More »
Udari Abeyasinghe A recent panel discussion held at the University of Peradeniya discussed the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent judgement on ragging where the Court recognized that preventing ragging requires more than criminal penalties imposed after an incident occurs, but also systems and processes within universities that enable victims to speak up and receive
Supporting Victims: The Missing Link in Combating Ragging Read More »
Kaushalya Perera Time has, by and large, stood still in the business of academic staff recruitment to state universities. Qualifications have proliferated and evolved to be more interdisciplinary, but our selection processes and evaluation criteria are unchanged since at least the late 1990s. But before I delve into the problems, I describe the existing processes
Recruiting academics to state universities – beset by archaic selection processes? Read More »
Hasini Lecamwasam As the debate on educational reforms rages, I find it useful to pay as much attention to the reactions they have excited as we do to the content of the reforms. Such reactions are a reflection of how education is understood in our society, and this understanding – along with the priorities it
Unpacking public responses to educational reforms Read More »
Ramya Kumar A new batch arrived at our Faculty again. Students representing almost all districts of the country remind me once again of the wonderful opportunity we have for promoting social and ethnic cohesion at our universities. Sadly, however, many students do not interact with each other during the first few semesters, not only because
General education reforms: What about language and ethnicity? Read More »
By Sasindu Patabendige Aragalaya which is/can be (mis)translated to English as ‘struggle’ or ‘revolt’ is getting suppressed and appropriated in multiple ways at the time of writing this piece, ironically (perhaps), with the sanction of the de facto president who claims to be ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’. The attempt of this column is to present some
In the national media of 21 August 2022, the UGC Chairman goes on record saying that, as university authorities deliberate the possibilities of bringing students back to campuses while the nation grapples with a devastating economic collapse
Free education is the canary in the coalmine Read More »
