VIDEO: Higher education in SL at a standstill

The decision taken by the government to increase the quota of foreign students in local universities is one made with motives of personal financial gain while students from the rural areas will be deprived of the opportunity to study at local universities, UNP MP Ruwan Wijewardena stated.

He said that this decision was unfair on local university applicants, especially poor students from rural areas adding that the party along with their university youth movements will seek to take action against the decision.

Meanwhile, the higher education system in the country has come to a standstill as universities have stopped conducting classes and some universities have been closed while the government pays no heed to the reasonable demands of the university lecturers who have only asked for the salaries they were promised, he stated.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that he was unable to grant a salary of Rs.200,000 for university lecturers to which MP Wijewardene said that the university lecturers had never demanded such a salary and that the government had broken the promises it had made during its election campaign.