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© Proceedings of the Ruhuna Quality Assurance Sessions 2021 (RUQAS 2021)
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21 September 2021

Message from the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ruhuna

It gives me great pleasure to send this message to the first Quality Assurance sessions of the University
of Ruhuna. CQA has moved forward by leaps and bounds during the last two years under the able

leadership of the former Director Prof. Mahinda Atapattu who just left office on 31.08.2021. The CQA

attendance has improved to near 100% for all the members including top management staff. It has
handled a large workload and a number of very complex issues in the recent past including the “online

examination policy with proctoring” recently.

Quality encompasses a wide range of aspects. I would focus on one aspect namely the gaps in the

higher education process. There are gaps in the profile of state university graduates and the industry
needs for employability. These gaps are in knowledge, skills and attitudes among graduates which

should be addressed by curriculum changes and reforms. These requirements keep changing with time
while the curricula of state universities change slowly. Further, the needs of the society for economic

growth change with time. Best example to learn this is, Covid-19 and the non-reformed health system
for decades. Hence, some educational programmes become more philosophical rather than pragmatic

in that context. Certainly, the civil society, corporate sector and industry, political authorities and

almost all academics understand this along with a section of the student population. However, whether
state universities have been able to adopt these needs at the required pace is questionable.

As a Vice Chancellor, I believe that all state universities could adopt these changes at the required pace

if not for the threatening forces challenging “every change.” This aspect must be addressed by the

Quality Assurance process in addition to all the other “issues in quality” to catch up with post Covid-
19 economic revival in Sri Lanka. This should be our short and intermediate term target in education.

This is equivalent to the post WWII situation in the world which many of us have never seen but heard
or read only. This could be achieved by what had been done at Faculty and Departmental level in

UOR by involving student members in the QA processes: a democratization of the system. In
addition, we have established IQA cells for Library, DCEU, administration, finance branch, recently.

In my opinion, there is no unit without adequate representation at CQA in the University of Ruhuna

now.

QA sessions help in this process by giving opportunities to present findings of their work, come under
scrutiny of the peers in that process and improve further. One good step for us is to establish an

“INCIDENT REPORTING SYSTEM” in quality issues which does not lead to disciplinary or punitive

action unless it is unacceptable or serious and not compatible with the level of expected performance
dependent on the seniority, experience and maturity of the personnel involved. That should be one

direction for the UOR to move within the next few months.
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