The Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) yesterday called on the government to defer the enactment of the proposed Kotelawala Defence University Bill, providing an opportunity for adequate consultations from all the relevant stakeholders.

The AMS has, in a media statement ‘Proposed KNDU Bill – more questions than answers’ signed by AMS President Dr. Lakkumar Fernando and AMS General Secretary Dr. R. Gnanasekeram, requested the government not to repeat the same mistakes as predecessors who set up the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) and SAITM.

Full text of the AMS statement: “As a responsible professional trade union of medical specialists who are concerned about the higher education in general and the QUALITY medical education in particular in our country, we would like to put forward following observations about the much-talked about proposed KNDU bill.

1. KDU is no more a “university established for a specific purpose” (mainly for military recruits) as it has day scholars following wide variety of courses for a fee. Further, the proposed KNDU bill gives powers to recruit “other persons” to KDU with no clear definition of who these other persons are.

2. Since the KDU is funded by the government (even though under different ministry) apparently with huge amount of tax payers’ money, we believe that the QUALITY of their courses (entry, process and exit) should be on par with UGC standards and other guidelines stipulated by relevant regulatory bodies.

3. By giving legal powers to recognize and affiliate other institutions to KDU under this proposed bill, we are going to establish another parallel institution to UGC in our country, funded by the tax payers’ money.

4. With more civilians planning to be recruited to this institution under “other persons “category, majority of the students here eventually will be civilians. Under these circumstances, we feel that the main governing body of this university should have majority of civilian educationists than military hierarchy who could well be political appointees.

5. If the KDU is empowered to recognize courses conducted by outside institutions to the conferment of their own degrees for civilians without the approval of the UGC, it can create an alternative pathway to civilian population to skip the standards of UGC which will undermine the purpose of the whole universities Act and the UGC.

6. If the UGC is given the authority to scrutinize the courses exclusively offered to the military as announced recently, it can undermine the confidentiality of the sensitive military sciences.

7. The role of the regulators of professional courses (eg: Sri Lanka Medical council) will unfairly be undermined leading to passing out of substandard medical and other professionals. It is pertinent to mention here that the minimum standards of medical education were enacted by the present government after a long delay which gave the necessary legal framework for the SLMC to regulate medical education. Hence, any regulation which can possibly by pass these standards will be detrimental to the medical education in Sri Lanka.

On principle, the AMS is not against QUALITY fee levying medical education in our country, if it is regulated and monitored by the UGC and the Sri Lanka Medical Council. However, lack of proper process and transparency will prevent the establishment of such fee levying institutions in Sri Lanka.

After careful consideration of above issues in the proposed bill, we would like to request the government to defer the enactment of this bill till we get the opportunity for adequate consultations from all the relevant stakeholders.

Further, we earnestly request the President and the government not to repeat the same historical mistakes our rulers did in the case of NCMC and SAITM, a few years back. It’s the responsibility of all of us to establish and protect QUALITY university education in our country.”