Higher Education State Minister Dr. Suren Raghavan told Parliament yesterday that the ‘National Higher Education Development Commission’(NHEDC) will be established to replace the current University Grants Commission (UGC) aiming to broaden its scope further.
The State Minister also stated that the legal proceedings for that are currently underway and a national dialogue out of politics is needed to formulate a national education policy.
He said this while joining the debate on education.
Nearly 12,700 university non-academic staff representing 18 trade unions are currently engaged in a strike demanding a 25 percent salary increase.We are trapped in politicisation. Both education and higher education should be defined nationally and steps should be taken to make an economic transformation through this.
Digitisation has spread to all fields.Digitisation is necessary in education reforms.It is also impossible to think about artificial intelligence without this.
Seventeen universities have been closed due to the strike of non-academic employees.This problem has been raised because of a salary anomaly that happened in 2016. Around Rs.6.8 billion is needed to rectify this anomaly.If a solution is provided in the next two or three days, this strike will be ended and non-academic employees will report to the service.I think we will be able to end this strike by next week.
(dailynews.lk)
