The Inter-University Students’ Federation (IUSF) has strongly accused the government of deliberately destabilizing the student movement by deploying politically affiliated individuals as university student leaders to facilitate its agenda of privatizing education.
Issuing a statement, IUSF charged that the government is misusing the federation’s official name, emblem, and letterhead to lend credibility to these efforts and mislead the public and academic communities.
“The current regime, abandoning even its own historical stance, has gone further than any previous administration in pushing the commodification of education,” the statement said. It cites the sale of medical degrees through the Kotelawala Defence University for Rs. 1.75 million, proposed education reforms to introduce tuition fees, the planned closure of public schools, the marginalization of paramedical degrees offered under free education, and the transformation of the University Grants Commission into a licensing body for private degree vendors.
According to IUSF, the biggest obstacle to the government’s privatization project is the organized student movement. “To neutralize this resistance, the government is attempting to sow discord within the movement by installing puppet student leaders,” the statement alleges.
IUSF warned the public and university community to remain vigilant against these deceptive tactics and called on all stakeholders to rally against what it described as a “tyrannical campaign” to commercialize Sri Lanka’s public education system.
“We urge the entire university community and the general public to reject these fabricated narratives and stand united to defeat the government’s oppressive education agenda,” the statement concluded.
