Features

Tender Boards, Katunayake runway and the day an OA asked JRJ to “go to hell”

Published

1 year ago

2025/10/12

Two non-technical officers confound the experts

Among the numerous responsibilities that Secretaries have to discharge, is the one of being Members or Chairmen of various Tender Boards. In fact most senior public servants are faced with this duty. But in the case of Secretaries, in addition to their own Ministry Tender Boards, above a certain financial threshold, they are appointed to large and important ones of other Ministries by the Cabinet. In my case, I kept on being appointed to some of the largest and most difficult ones. Some of these were controversial, where previous tenders had been canceled and fresh tenders ordered, due to allegations and other controversies.

Usually I was given the added burden of chairing these controversial boards. This happened under several governments. Perhaps, the fact that I chaired the Food Purchase Board of the Ministry of Food, which was responsible for the purchase of food commodities, of the order of about Rs. 5 billion a year, for a period of over 12 years without any problem or complaint, might have had something to do with this. In government, if you have been deemed to have worked well, additional burdens are cast on you, but no additional remuneration. All governments generously reward you with more work and additional responsibilities.

Most of the Tender Boards I was appointed to involved financial outlays of well over a billion rupees. Two of the more interesting and even controversial ones were the Hydrocracker tender of the Petroleum Corporation and the new Katunayake Airport runway. In the first tender the Ministry of Industries was involved, and in the second, the Ministry of Defence. I will not dwell at length on the Hydrocracker tender, which was dogged with fierce competition and numerous allegations, among the competitors as well as against various persons in the Ministry and the Corporation. The Hydrocracker was meant to upgrade the technology of the Petroleum refinery making the operation capable of new products, as well as bringing about cost savings and greater efficiency.

In the end, fierce battles among competitors and unremitting allegations led to government canceling the whole tender. Matters did not rest there, and some of the parties who thought they had a grievance went to court. The High Court judgment whilst being complimentary of the “Three civil servants,” who served on the Tender Board, namely Mr. V.L. Wirasinghe, Secretary, Ministry of Industries; Mr. Chandi Chanmugam, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury and myself, as Secretary to the Ministry of Food and Co-operatives, was very critical of several persons in the Ministry and the Petroleum Corporation, including the then Minister of Industries. The net result of all this was that we lost an opportunity to modernize and add to the effectiveness of the petroleum refinery.

The Katunayake new runwayTender Board

In September 1983, I found myself appointed by the Cabinet to be a Member of the Katunayake Airport New Runway Tender Board. Since the airport came under the Ministry of Defence, General SepalsaAttygalle Secretary, Ministry of Defence, who was also the Chairman of the Airport and Aviation Authority, chaired the Board. Other members of the Board were Mr. Gaya Cumaranatunge, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury and the Director of Highways, an engineer. There was a technical evaluation committee composed of senior engineers and there was also a foreign firm of consultants to the project.

Tenders of these magnitudes, involve several volumes of material and drawings. You took all these at home because there was no time whatsoever to read and digest these in office. I used to heap them by my bed, where propping myself on a pillow, I used to read them in the night and over week-ends. This used to get me into trouble with my wife, the “Home Minister,” who was unable to get the room dusted and swept properly and was faced with the task of daily shifting these volumes about. A frequent inquiry was, “When are you going to take them away?” to which my consistently useless answer was, “When the Tender Board has finished business.”

The Tender Board usually met in the premises of the Airport and Aviation Authority in Havelock Town, and sometimes in the Ministry of Defence. From the very beginning we had problems. One was the inability of the Chairman of the Board, General Attygalle to sit and concentrate on what was going on. This was because he was being constantly disturbed by the telephone. I should say telephones, because like most of us he had more than one. He used to say “You carry on,” and became preoccupied with his calls. Therefore, it was difficult for him to follow the discussions closely or get a coherent picture of what was happening.

The other problem we faced was that a good part of the content of our discussions was leaking out. Another problem that arose as we went on with our meetings, was that various influential people tried to interfere with the working of the Tender Board. This was going too far, and Mr. Cumaranatunge and I sought an appointment with President Jayewardene in his capacity as Minister of Defence, the Minister in charge of the Airport. He gave us an appointment at his home at Ward Place. We told him that we were concerned about the leaks as well as attempts to influence us, and that we thought that he should know of these as the Minister in charge.

He noted what we said, affirmed his confidence in us and asked us to act fearlessly. Things improved somewhat. The fact that we saw the President would have been subsequently known. When these things were happening, I kept my Minister Mr. Gamani Jayasuriya informed, in confidence. He was a senior Minister and a gentleman, and I wanted him to be aware of what was happening.

Concern about technical issues by two non technical officers

As we went deeper into the technical aspects of the offers, Mr. Cumaranatunge and I became concerned about three areas in particular. One was, whether the parking apron facilities were adequate. The other was, as to whether the amount of concrete going into the runway was adequate due to the high water table in the area of the airport. Actually I raised this issue since I was familiar with the Negombo area, and after having noticed that the tenderer who was emerging had constructed runways only in certain areas of the Middle-East, under desert or near desert conditions. But what worried us most was the question of the length of the runway.

The two of us who were non-engineers and could be classed as non-technical developed an uneasy feeling as we went on. We were not fully satisfied that the length of the runway as recommended by all the technical experts, including the foreign consultants, was capable of taking a 747 aircraft. Mr. Cumaranatunge and I discussed these matters in private. In due course, an agreement was reached that the apron area needed to be expanded and that indeed more concrete had to be added to the runway. This was a result achieved as a result of our educated instincts which we followed up which led to private consultations with friends of ours who were technically competent.

On the length of the runway however all the experts were adamant that the length was right and that an extension beyond the length recommended would only add substantially to the costs, for no purpose. But our instincts would not go away. The more we read and the more we discussed, the more disturbed the two of us became. It was true that we were not experts in these areas. But by now Mr. Cumaranatunge and I were quite senior in service had sat on scores of different types of tender boards, and possessed wide and varied experience. We had got into the discipline of taking nothing for granted and the habit of probing anything of importance. We had also had enough experience not to uncritically trust “experts,” because during the course of our careers, we had seen experts of all kinds being either wrong or not fully right. Therefore, we decided to seek international assistance on our own, unknown to the rest of the tender board or the technical evaluation committee.

We were suspicious of the behaviour of some of them, and not certain that they were not in the pockets of some of the tenderers. We used Mr. Cumaranatunge’s Treasury telex facilities and contacted the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal, Canada. There were no fax machines at the time.

We relayed our concerns to them and the reasons for our state of mind. The reply that came was startling. ICAO doubted that given our conditions, the runway was adequate to take a 747 aircraft. In the meantime, in reply to our continuing probing, the experts cited an example of a runway in Indonesia, which was similar to the intended length of our runway. The next day unknown to others, Mr. Cumaranatunge and I telexed the Director of Civil Aviation of Indonesia. We received another startling reply. He replied that the runway in question could comfortably take in D.C. 10 aircraft and a 747, “in an emergency!”

By this time we were getting quite angry. We demanded that a special meeting of the tender board be summoned, along with the technical evaluation committee and the foreign consultants to the project who were from a Western country. I kept Minister Gamani Jayasuriya informed of all this in confidence, in case something came up in Cabinet. At the special meeting Mr. Cumaranatunge produced the relevant telexes and pitched into all the experts, domestic and foreign. He was quite harsh and demanded answers. I backed him up.

My personality and style were different to his. In a calm and collected manner, natural to me, I supplemented what Mr. Cumaranatunge said, mentioned that unless cogent explanations were given we had to assume incompetence or worse, and that both of us would if necessary ask to be relieved of our duty in serving on such a tender board. There were red faces all-round. The evidence we had, proved to be irrefutable. The consultants accepted that they had erred. The technical evaluation committee were speechless. We saw to it that all this was recorded in the minutes. The net result was that several meters were added to the original length of the runway.

Another visit to the President and summons to cabinet

In the meantime, we heard that some interested parties had got at some cabinet ministers. Mr. Cumaranatunge was out of the country. But I decided, I needed to see the President. I got an appointment and went to see him in the Presidential Secretariat in the old Parliament building. The main issue was that a tenderer who had been ruled out by the tender board on the basis of non responsiveness to some of the conditions was exerting considerable pressure to join in the bidding. This tender was from an important western country and the bidding organization quite well known. But as far as we were concerned we had to safeguard the integrity of the tender process and names did not matter to us.

Our decisions had to be transparent, consistent and manifestly defensible. When I was ushered into the President’s presence, he was seated alone at his office desk. As I was walking in, he smiled and asked “So Pieris, are you worried?” I said “Yes Sir,” and sat in the chair indicated by him. Then, I briefly indicated what was happening, the pressure that was coming, and the rumour that some cabinet ministers were getting involved. After listening, he said “Yes a minister has spoken to me about this matter.” After a pause, he added “why don’t you prepare a short note for me on this for cabinet? You can send it to me.” I said, “Sir, I cannot make the note too short. If I compress too much, cabinet will not understand. Certain technical issues will have to be explained.”

“How many pages will it be?” he inquired. “At least five pages” I said, thinking that, no one will read it. “Ah! My ministers won’t read it then” said the President, plucking the very thought from my mind. “I will tell you,” he went on. “Come to the next cabinet meeting and explain it to them.” I thought “Serves you right for trying to be too conscientious.” At the same time, during the absence of Mr. Cumaranatunge also, I did not want matters to get out of hand.

I went before cabinet on the appointed day. True to my previous experiences, the cabinet seemed to be in an uproar, as I entered. I have been called into cabinet on several occasions, and under several governments. At least whenever I had gone in, they always had sounded like a public meeting gone out of hand. When silence prevailed, after the intervention of the President, I was asked by the President to explain matters. Some ministers interrupted me to ask questions; some asked questions at the end. These included Ministers Lalith Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake and Anandatissa de Alwis. One asked a question which indicated that the minister concerned had not understood a word of what I had said.

At the end of it I remember the Minister of Finance, Mr.Ronnie de Mel addressing the President for all to hear, and saying “Sir, the Tender Board seem to be doing an excellent job. I don’t think we should interfere with them. Let them take their own decisions.” Some of the ministers strongly supported this. In the end, I was thanked and asked to carry on as we thought fit. There was a cabinet decision to this effect.

A call from President Jayewardene

About three days after this cabinet meeting, my telephone at home rang at about 7.30 a.m. It was President Jayewardene. “Pieris, I have a problem with keeping out that party,” he said Then he went on to explain what the problem was. It was plain from what he said, that high matters of state were involved, which transcended a mere single tender. The President however understood our position as public servants. He said at the end “what’s to be done,? shall I then give you a directive to admit this party for consideration? It will be enough if their offer is considered.”

I saw that there was a genuine problem. Now I had to advice him. I reminded him that it was the cabinet that ratified our decision to keep the party out and advised that it would be better for the cabinet to change the decision rather than he alone getting involved. He thanked me and said he would abide by my advice. In the end, although admitted to the running, the party concerned was not successful, and the tender was awarded to the correct party with all matters such as the length of the runway settled. There were no protests.

A postscript

There was an interesting postscript to all this. After the runway was built and completed sometime in 1986, Minister Gamani Jayasuriya and I had to go to Washington. We were going through the VIP lounge, and when the officers came to collect our baggage and air tickets, I quietly whispered to the protocol officer to put me on the opposite side from the Minister. I thought this was the best way to obtain some privacy for both of us on a long journey. But as they were leaving with the tickets, the minister pointed to me and said “Put that fellow next to me,” in his usual humorous and bantering style. That was that, and I found myself seated next to him.

The minister was quite relaxed and very jovial. When the stewardess came round for the drinks order and I said pineapple juice, the Minister told her “What pineapple juice, bring him a Cinzano.” In a short while the plane was taxing for take off. This was the first time both of us were going to get a glimpse of the new runway, for it was opened to traffic only a few weeks previously. I was gazing out, lost in thought when the plane took the turn and began straightening and we began to see the runway. The next moment a heavy hand descended on my shoulder, and when I turned somewhat startled, the minister pointed at the runway and said “Your runway.”

President Jayewardene and telephone calls

I had referred earlier to President Jayewardene’s telephone call to me at home. He very often dialed a line himself and many a startled official found the President on the line when he lifted the phone. I myself have had this experience on several occasions. One day for instance when I went to answer the phone at about 10 p.m. at home, it was the President on the line. There was no switchboard operator asking you to hold on. I rather think that he enjoyed the effect of surprise it created in people.

But one day we saw that the creation of surprise need not be one way. We were summoned to an 8.00 a.m. meeting with the President in the conference room of the then Presidential Secretariat at Republic Square. It was on some issues connected with Agriculture and Food. Minister Gamani Jayasuriya was there with senior officials from both Ministries. During the course of the discussions it became evident that we needed a senior official from the Ministry of Finance. The President reached out for the telephone directory which was near his telephone at the conference table and began leafing through muttering “I will get Dr. Tilakaratna, and ask him to come here.”

Dr. Tilakaratna was at that time the Secretary to the Treasury. Mr. Menikdiwela, the President’s Secretary, who was seated close by volunteered to find the number, but the President said “Don’t worry, I will find it.” He found the number and dialed. It appeared that there was no answer. It was still not 8.30 a.m. and Dr. Tilakaratna had not come in as yet. Then the President said, “I will try the Senior Assistant Secretary,” which must have been the next officer on which his eye alighted. No answer. Then looking further down his face lit up and he said “Ah the OA” and began dialing the Office Assistant’s number.

This time he got a response. “Is that the OA?’ asked the President. The answer must have been in the affirmative, for he said “OA I am President Jayewardene here.” We knew that he was asking for trouble, and were suppressing our laughter with great difficulty. As expected, a peculiar look developed on the President’s face, and he slowly replaced the receiver, telling us “The OA says, – “I say, I have heard that before. Why don’t you go to hell without disturbing me?!” We were literally rolling with laughter. We could see that the President enjoyed it too.

Eventually Dr. Tilakaratna was got down. The President told him “I say, you have a very strong OA He had just asked me to go to hell.” There was more laughter. Dr. Tilakaratna said, “When I go back to office, I will call and ask him.” We told him that if the poor man had a weak heart, it would surely kill him. But he thought that the OA was robust enough to take any shock. The meeting ended after some time. Later, we asked Dr. Tilakaratna as to what happened. He had called the OA up and calmly asked him “OA is it true that, you have this morning asked the President of Sri Lanka to go to hell?!” I would leave the hapless man’s reaction to the reader’s imagination.

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Pie

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Features

Coercive laws recipe for future misrule

Published

3 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

The NPP government is going after powerful figures from the past and present who have engaged in corruption, fraud and criminal activity in a way that no previous government in Sri Lanka has done. Former ministers, politicians and senior state officials are among those facing investigations and legal proceedings. The government has placed before Parliament a document listing 50 cases involving corruption, fraud and other crimes. These include not only financial offences but also cases relating to the Easter Sunday attacks, the killings of Lasantha Wickrematunge and Wasim Thajudeen, the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda and attacks on journalists Keith Noyahr and Upali Tennakoon.

The significance of this effort is that it can demonstrate that nobody is above the law, regardless of political connections or social standing, which will help restore public confidence in institutions that have long been distrusted. It could also recover public resources, improve the investment climate and strengthen the foundations for a more prosperous and just Sri Lanka. When criticised for focusing on the past and not the present, the government position is that these investigations were initiated under earlier governments, particularly between 2015 and 2019, and that it is now allowing investigators to proceed to deal with the backlog without political interference.

But there is an aspect of the government’s approach that is less justifiable. While pursuing past wrongdoing by powerful individuals, it is also advancing a triumvirate of draft laws that could give the state sweeping powers over citizens, organisations and dissent in the present and future. The draft Prevention of Terrorism legislation, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill raise serious questions about the over-centralisation of power. Each of these laws strengthens the powers of the state while weakening the rights and safeguards that protect people from their misuse and thus questions the basic rights of people in democracy where ‘the power of the people is vested in the government’. This is a recipe for future misrule rather than the rule of law. As the well-known saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Proposed Laws

The real test of system change, for which the government obtained an overwhelming mandate, requires not only a government willing to hold others accountable, but one prepared to subject itself to the same principles of legality, transparency and restraint. The three proposed laws that are particularly important in this regard are the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill. Each of these draft laws has been presented as serving a legitimate purpose. Preventing terrorism, combating organised crime and ensuring that NGOs do not facilitate money laundering or terrorist financing are proper responsibilities of the state. Sri Lanka has international obligations in these areas, and no responsible government can disregard them. However, the existence of a legitimate objective does not justify every means adopted to achieve it.

The proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill illustrates the problem. Although its definition of terrorism draws on a model developed by a former United Nations Special Rapporteur, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has warned that the definition of terrorism extends beyond the model and could bring legitimate political protest, trade union action and civil disobedience within the scope of counter-terrorism legislation. Its concerns also include prolonged detention, inadequate judicial oversight and restrictions on access to legal counsel. These are objections that go to the heart of the relationship between the citizen and the state. The government cannot credibly promise to protect democratic freedoms while creating powers that could be used to restrict them. It is necessary for the government to reassess the draft through transparent consultation and revise provisions that could criminalise legitimate dissent.

The Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill raises similar concerns. It is presented as giving effect to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, which Sri Lanka ratified in 2006. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has argued that the convention does not require many of the bill’s provisions. The proposed law extends to a broad range of offences, permits detention orders lasting up to a year, makes confessions to police admissible for purposes of legal evidence, and introduces extensive surveillance powers. A law intended to dismantle criminal networks should not create a parallel system of exceptional powers that could be applied far beyond organised crime. Nor should safeguards developed through years of experience with abuses under the Prevention of Terrorism Act be weakened through legislation bearing a different name. The government should review whether or not existing laws could be used effectively to control these crimes or whether each exceptional power is necessary.

Civil Society

The proposed NGO Registration and Supervision Bill presents another test of the government’s intentions. The government may reasonably seek transparency in the finances of organisations receiving public or foreign funds, including measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. It seeks to justify its overreach on the grounds of meeting the internationally mandated requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for the Asia-Pacific region. But these objectives do not justify placing civil society and NGOs under excessive administrative control when even the FATF ranks them as low to medium risks. The draft bill would require registration and renewal, impose extensive obligations on organisations and empower authorities to suspend or deregister them on broadly framed grounds. It is important to redraft provisions that confer excessive discretion over registration, renewal, suspension and deregistration of NGOs.

Among the concerns raised by United Nations human rights special rapporteurs with regard to the draft NGO law are provisions requiring organisations to align with government policies and restrictions that could affect advocacy, dissent and freedom of association. The implications extend well beyond organisations that engage directly with the government. Community groups, human rights organisations, independent researchers and organisations working on reconciliation or accountability could find their activities constrained by uncertainty over how these provisions might be interpreted. Organisations that criticise government policies are not thereby working against the country. Their freedom to do so is part of what distinguishes a democracy from a system in which the government determines which opinions and activities are acceptable.

The government has generated considerable public goodwill through its pursuit of corruption and criminality. It should not assume that this goodwill gives it an unlimited mandate to strengthen the coercive powers of the state. The NPP knows from its own history that governments can treat dissent as a threat and use the machinery of the state against their opponents. There is still time to correct the drafts through transparent public consultation, narrow definitions of offences, meaningful judicial control over detention and surveillance, and effective remedies against arbitrary decisions. A government that pursues corruption while weakening safeguards against state abuse risks undermining its own achievements. Besides bringing to light the abuse of power by previous governments, the NPP government needs to build a system in which no future government can abuse power in the belief they can get away with it.

Features

Quality assurance without quality enhancement: The irony of university QA

Published

3 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

By 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 structure has been in place since 2005 to govern and implement QA processes within the state university system. The QAC is the focal point at the UGC that implements external reviews of state universities and institutes. Each university has its own Centre for Quality Assurance (CQA) tasked with performing QA in line with QAC directives. Faculties, in turn, have Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQAC) performing their own QA; they are answerable to the CQA.

The big question is whether this all-encompassing top-down QA system, that in many ways undermines the internal dynamics of university governance, actually supports universities to enhance the quality of education. This article highlights some concerns.

Top-down check-box activities

The QAC conducts external reviews of universities and degree programmes. A review team appointed by the UGC (who may or may not have experience in the institution/programme in question) examines the self-evaluation report submitted by the said institution/programme. The team then conducts a site visit to verify the claims made in the university’s self-evaluation report, clarify issues identified during the desk review, and examine how QA procedures operate in practice. The team holds meetings with the university administration, members of the Council and Senate, Deans, Heads of Departments, academic and non-academic staff, students, and others. Following the visit, a draft report is submitted to the relevant institution/programme for comment before final publication. The reviewed institution/programme then prepares and publishes an action plan addressing the recommendations, with subsequent monitoring of progress.

There are some worthy QA initiatives under implementation, such as improving facilities for students with disabilities and strengthening mechanisms to address sexual- and gender-based violence. However, for the most part, QA activities have little to do with improving the quality of education. They are mostly preoccupied with monitoring faculty and department websites, digital transformation, student feedback, subject evaluation, course evaluation, peer evaluation, and, more recently, staff appraisal. These activities, which consume an inordinate amount of time—so precious at understaffed universities—have become check-box activities completed to generate evidence for the next review. Below is an excerpt of a conversation between two academics (1 and 2) that conveys how QA plays out at universities (reproduced with permission).

1: … .it’s like social media you know, like posting things on Facebook or twitter or Instagram. When people do a lot of social media, everything they do, they do thinking, “okay I’m going to post it in this way… this I have to put on my Instagram.” QA is a little like that… everything is considered in light of, “ah we can use this for the review, as evidence… for example very recently we were encouraged to have all the things that we do in our department in the faculty newsletter so then they can put in the review. Every little thing has to be noted down….

2: And with pictures and all…

1: At the very least it has to be written so that you have written evidence .. you can’t be doing something for the sake of doing something or because it is good for the department … and sometimes people tell me “oh yea that’s a good idea we can fit that under this x, y section of the review..”

2: Yea, and nobody really thinks about the actual outcome… whether it’s actually helping anyone..

1: I also find that a lot of the words that we used in different ways have now been co-opted to the QA discourse ..including quality.. I can’t actually say what I want as an “outcome”, for example, that the outcome of this workshop is that my students “think about” … then I am told “ah but no that’s not one of the Bloom’s taxonomy words, “think about”.…

2: And the worst part is these medical and agriculture people, these types of people go around spreading it like some kind of gospel!

1: Yea, this cookie cutter way of doing things, they think is the height of innovativeness or creativity, when actually it is so mundane … for me the most awful thing about it is like some fungus of mundanity has taken over through QA reviews.

2: yea, when you say QA, my mind closes off immediately and I stop listening…

Auditing everything but power

QA leaves out crucial aspects of university governance. For instance, there is no review or assessment of the “quality” of university administrations under Criterion 1 or the integrity of procedures governing the promotion of academic staff under Criterion 6 of the institutional reviews.

The majority in the Council—the university’s executive and governing body, which is responsible for selecting the Vice-Chancellor (VC)—are appointed in ad hoc fashion. Apart from the Ex-Officio members in the Council (VC, Deans, etc.), and the two members elected by the Senate, the remainder are appointed by the UGC with no formal consultation or vetting procedure. The VC appointment process described in UGC Circular No. 03/2023 exemplifies how an ostensibly technical process can become entangled in political sycophancy. The Registrar invites applications for the position of VC through advertisement. Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae, a statement of vision for the university and supporting documents. The University Council appoints a three-member Search Committee of senior academics to encourage “eminent persons” to apply, while the UGC appoints a former VC from another university to “observe” the selection process.

A Special Meeting of the University Council is convened. Candidates are interviewed and must make a presentation to the Council Members, followed by questions. Each Council member “gives marks” for seven prescribed criteria: strategic focus (20%), effective leadership (20%), holistic thinking/conceptual skills (10%), academic and research excellence (15%), personal integrity (10%), professional communication (10%) and managerial competence (15%). Marks are averaged, and the Council recommends three candidates to the UGC in rank order. The UGC-appointed observer separately submits a confidential report on the selection process.

This procedure is expected to guarantee quality, but does it? Applications are submitted to the Council Members, who have been appointed on questionable bases, and who are expected to review the applications and give scores, based on objective assessments. But, in reality, most Council Members are manipulated by VC candidates, who often have personal ties with them. The UGC-appointed observer usually has no genuine interest in the outcome. And there is no way for anyone to actually question the Council’s decision once it is made. Although the highest-ranked candidate may ultimately be appointed, the selection remains a political decision made by the President, who retains the discretion to appoint any one of the three.

External reviews also do not look into the promotions of academic staff, except to scrutinise whether there are policies and procedures in place to govern promotion. Academic staff may apply for promotion to Professor once they satisfy the prescribed eligibility requirements, which typically include the period of service, academic qualifications, research and publication achievements, teaching experience, and contributions to the university and wider community. Applications are evaluated against specified criteria, with research output and academic contributions assessed through documentary evidence and expert evaluation. Under the UGC’s scheme for Professors, two experts from outside the applicant’s institution assess specified aspects of research and knowledge dissemination. Again, beneath this technical process, which is externally evaluated, lies a problematic points-based scheme that can be manipulated and abused with impunity.

Rethinking university QA

Like the VC election process and the schemes of promotion for academic staff, QA reviews are open to manipulation. Before a review, there is a chaotic rush to complete evidence gathering and reporting. Academics leave all other work aside, including at times their teaching, to focus on completing documentation and preparing reports. The standardised criteria in the review manuals and scoring sheets often do not reflect differences in disciplines and institutional contexts. But this does not really matter because any serious problems experienced by institutions or programmes are hastily brushed under the carpet to conceal any evidence that could taint the review. The goal is to obtain an A or at least a B grade at whatever cost.

QA may result in positive change if it moves beyond top-down check-box activities towards internally designed and owned processes encompassing all aspects of university governance, led by departments and faculties, and supported by adequate resources. The current QA system needs to be dismantled and replaced by procedures that are accountable, not to the UGC, but to our students and the communities we serve.

(Ramya Kumar is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna)

. Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

Features

Down Memory Lane — the Grand 20th Edition!

Published

3 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

Down Memory Lane: Ready to sing again

Yes, Down Memory Lane, the beloved Sing-Along concert series that first struck a chord, way back in 1997, returns for its landmark 20th edition this Saturday, 17th October, at the beautiful Bolgoda Grand Resort, Moratuwa town centre.

Having celebrated its glorious 25th anniversary with the show in 2023, this milestone 20th concert promises to be even more special.

The organisers, the ever-popular Moratuwa Arts Forum, are pulling out all the stops to present yet another unforgettable evening, brimming with camaraderie, fellowship, and pure nostalgia.

Get ready for two-and-a-half hours of non-stop singing as veteran vocalists, from the Moratuwa Arts Forum, will take the stage to lead and inspire the happy audience to sing, sing and sing to their hearts’ content.

The repertoire? Absolutely magical, according to the organisers.

Veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike: Will handle the evening’s proceedings / Priya Peiris: Event Conceptor

Around 40 golden oldies — from timeless English vintage evergreens and hits from the 50s to the 90s, to toe-tapping calypsos, soulful American plantation melodies, rousing cowboy and Dixieland favourites, aa well as cherished Sinhala standards. All to be sung with much gusto!

This year’s dedicated organising committee comprises Brian Coorey (Chairman), Priya Peiris (Event Conceptor), Hiran Fernando, Suranga Fernando, Viranjan Perera, Hemka Fernando and Neelesh Silva. Guidance and support comes from Moratuwa Arts Forum President Sarana Guneratne and Secretary Chandani Silva.

Adding his signature charm to the evening, as Master of Ceremonies, will be the veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike.

Don’t miss this landmark celebration of music and memories!

For further details, contact Hiran Fernando on 0772636446 or WhatsApp 0783636446.