Protest against new VC’s appointment

Two more members of the Council of the University of Colombo, Rev. Fr. Ivan Perera, Emeritus National Director of Catholic Education and Mrs. Mano Ramanathan, a retired Senior Deputy Legal Draftsman and former Member of the Monetary Board, have resigned last week protesting against the appointment of the new Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo.

Former Vice Chacellor Chandrika Wijeyaratne was denied a second term despite her clearly topping the list of three nominations submitted by the University Grants Commission to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Earlier two other members of the Council, Messrs. Tilak Karunaratne and Ajit Gunawardene also quit protesting against the bad appointment. Fr. Perera was the nominee of the Catholic Church to the Council.

He said in his letter that he was a member of the selection panel which, using written UGC guidelines, evaluated the three candidates in a clear and transparent manner and was surprised by the final appointment.

“It therefore means that you have lost confidence in me s well as others in the Council and I have no option but to resign from the Council,” he has told the UGC Chairman.

Expressing disappointment that the candidate who had by far obtained the best rating through a transparent process had been overlooked, Mrs. Ramanathan said this compelled her resignation “although I very much regret doing so.”

In an article written to the Colombo Telegraph and published on its website, Senior Lecturer in History of the University of Colombo, Ms. Janaki Jayawardena has described the appointment of the new VC as a “blatant violation of academic integrity.” She also says that the appointee had denied being a member of Viyath Maga in a newspaper report.

“However, he appears in the meetings organized by the President to seek support from the academic community. He was selected by the President Rajapaksa and appointed to the committee to seek a solution to the present economic crisis, out of all the economists and the management experts in this country,” she adds.

“Furthermore, the newspaper article states that he has disagreed with the marks he has scored and stated that the Council had used biased margins. The UGC circular implemented in 2020 has introduced a very rigorous process to eliminate such biases.”

If there was bias, all three candidates assessed would have suffered such bias and not only the new VC.