The country is agog for news about the presidential election to be held in January next year and distracted by the unfolding ‘mega’ political soap opera. We Sri Lankans seem to breathe politics, eat politics and sleep politics. The media also stand accused of their bias for politics. That may be one reason why politicians have become all too important in this land and even eminent professionals are taking to politics.

Results of the GCE (A/L) 2009 examination have been released while politicians and their supporters are girding themselves for the fray. It is heartening that about 63 per cent of 199,000 candidates have passed the examination. Similarly, it is sad that of those 126,000 successful students, only a fraction will gain university admission, though all of them are qualified for higher education. Most of them cannot realise their dream of university education because the State is unable to provide facilities. Last year only about 15 per cent of the successful GCE (A/L) candidates could enter university. This, we believe, amounts to a violation of children's right to education. As is well known, education is a right and not a privilege!

The question that we must ask ourselves as a nation is what action we have taken to ensure children's right to higher education.

Young intelligent youth are, to borrow a term from Bertrand Russell, packets of energy to be handled with extreme care if we are to avoid trouble. When frustration sets in because they cannot achieve educational goals in spite of their eligibility, we have a pool of resentment. Only anarchical elements stand to gain from such a situation as we have clearly seen on two occasions––in 1971 and from 1986 to 1989.

Ironically, even those who gain university admission cannot be considered so lucky. Universities are beset with problems ranging from a chronic lack of funds to the deterioration of educational standards. Violence and brutal ragging have aggravated the situation further. When a student gets in, when he will get out is not predictable because of prolonged closures, protests etc. There is also no guarantee that he or she will be able to return in one piece, given the high incidence of violence in universities.

Most university products are unemployable and even those who are properly educated and trained are without employment opportunities when they graduate. During the past few weeks we have been witnessing various protests by unemployed graduates demanding jobs in the State sector. (They seem to have some aversion to the private sector; maybe they think their future is more secure in the public service, where performance is taken for granted!) Some universities are churning out external graduates at a rate regardless of their quality and they, too, join protest marches upon graduation, at the behest of ultra radical political forces that promise them the sun and the moon and take them on a disastrous journey.

Parliament conducts stormy debates on errors in school term test papers but regrettably the problems in the higher education sector do not receive such attention. Maybe, the vociferous MPs making political capital out of school term tests are wary of discussing the ailing universities because it is their backers who are unleashing hell on campuses. These hypocrites are on a much advertised crusade to clean national politics and usher in good governance, but their Sahodarayas who are a law unto themselves have rendered universities really ungovernable through systematic violence.

It is hoped that the plight of innocent children who are denied university education for no fault of theirs will receive the attention of politicians of all hues at least during the next few weeks.