University Students Protest March Colombo Today

Sri Lanka major university students' union, Inter University Students' Federation (IUSF - ANTHARE) will hold a massive protest march today noon from Colombo Fort to the Ministry of Higher Education ward place. This is will create a huge traffic !

The Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) is planning to stage a protest today in Colombo with the participation of more than 5,000 students of all universities that hold the membership of IUSF along with Higher National Institutes islandwide. The protest will be staged based on a number of demands. IUSF convener Lahiru Weerasekara said the main demand would be to urge the government to abolish the privatisation of universities.

“We are hoping to stage the protest against ‘fake degrees’ offered at a certain institution while urging the government to abolish the private universities that are being operated at present,” he said.

Questioned whether this protest is staged as a challenge to the government against the Higher National Diploma in Accountancy (HNDA) student attack, he said the protest was previously planned.

“However our demands include obtaining similar recognition to the HND as that of the Bachelor of Commerce degree,” Weerasekera added.

The HNDA was granted equal recognition in 1990 but later a circular was issued by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government cancelling the degree status provided.

The IUSF last Friday issuing a statement condemned the manner in which the police handled the demonstration by students of HNDA where several students were injured.

Source -CDN