Whither engineering faculty of Peradeniya University

Though some people tend to define ragGing as an innocent exercise to get to know newcomers to the Universities in the past, ragging has now become an inhuman act in many universities.

With the prevailing situation in the country, ragging and its objectives can take different faces such as university political groups using ragging to convert and recruit new members to their parties, and to suppress a certain section of the student population.

However, present day ragging is completely a different phenomenon where verbal, physical and sexual harassment have become the order of the day in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya. Now, ragging itself is a despicable act so that any parent would have second thoughts before sending their children to the Engineering Faculty, as ragging has been taking a heavy toll during the last few years.

The Engineering Student Union (ESU) has been sponsoring ragging in various degrees and this untoward situation has led the lives of many new undergraduates to misery. The present President of ESU is trying very hard to give different definitions to ragging thereby trying to justify his action.

Since the beginning of the new term in January 2007, there were incidents of violence related to ragging, reported in the University. An incident of ragging inside the Faculty premises was reported to the Deputy Proctor of the Faculty of Engineering on 27th March 2007.

When the Dy. Proctor and senior student counsellors (all are from academic staff) sought disciplinary actions against the culprits, the present president of ESU, and his close allies interfered with the inquiry, used their political clout to stop any action against the culprits.

The Union did not stop at that, but later used forces favoured to them and turned the incident upside down, painting a wrong picture on the staff. Now the ESU President is in the process of taking legal action against the six members who tried to inquire the matter on counts of breach of human rights.

Letters in respect of injustice and irregularities of the Union leader have been sent to all the concerned authorities including the President but but no action has been taken against any of the culprits.

It is interesting to know what these people do behind close doors while condemning ragging in the open. Unfortunately, in the recent past, Peradeniya University didn't have a Vice Chancellor, who could stand up against corruption, indiscipline and injustice, be it from administration or the student sides.

They would just give in to any demand particularly by students, regardless if the request was right or wrong, ethical or not to save faces doing their VC term of 3 or 6 years, just to enjoy the benefits of the post.

It is unfortunate that the opportunity for appointing a good administrator for the University has been closed because of the political nature of the appointment.

Anybody appointed now as the VC first has to look after the people who politically helped him/her to become VC. These can include various people of the university community, including students, union leaders, politically active academic and non-academic members of the staff etc. Now, being a VC at Peradeniya is all about personal glory, benefits, helping friends to keep the ball rolling. The end result, the prime place of free education is slowly being devastated and free education is being deprived of future sons and daughters of this country.

In addition, there are certain parasites in the university lower administration, who very smartly manipulate the higher administration to mess up the whole set-up in the University for their personal benefits.

These people even use the student leaders and innocent student crowd very cunningly to achieve their ulterior motives.

Not even a proper inquiry was held, though an inquiry was dragged on for more than a year for the sake of pleasing the members of engineering Faculty Teachers Union. Finally the whole thing was swept under the carpet on the instruction of the then Dean/Engineering and the VC at that time, purely to save their faces.

With such an attitude towards ragging and student indiscipline in general, do you think Peradeniya university administration has done its best to curb ragging?

In recent years, there were many occasions like above 2003 case where ESU personally and individually harassed the academic staff, i.e. their teachers of the Engineering Faculty. Seeking disciplinary actions against the culprits involved is the duty and responsibility of Vice Chancellor.

However, not in a single case a proper inquiry was conducted, nor the culprits were identified or punished. In many cases the innocent were punished as a result of improper inquiries which drag on for weeks or months. Such attitude of higher administration towards indiscipline, unethical and unacceptable student behaviour, will only encourage the students to engage in more and more anti-social activities.

- Anti-ragging Group