Mandatory Increased Bond fees & stringent Agreement Conditions is to be blamed for —Mass Resignation of University Tutors…

The Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) has said that the main reasons Sri Lankan lecturers, professors, and senior lecturers are leaving their jobs are the proposed increase in the bond fee that university academic tutors must pay when they go abroad to study or undertake research, and the stringent regulations and guidelines that they must adhere to.

According to new proposed guidelines, all university tutors who want to go abroad to continue their studies or do additional research will have to agree to strict conditions set by the Sri Lanka University administration. One of these conditions is that they will have to pay a much higher bond fee. This is intended to make sure that tutors who have gone abroad will not remain there without coming back to the island.

Members of the Committee on Public Enterprises along with individuals who work for the University Grants Commission (UGC) deliberated about these new regulations.

From the point of view of university faculty members, this situation is much worse because all of the advanced academic research scholarships are given to Sri Lankan universities by countries outside of Sri Lanka. The US dollar is used to figure out how much all of these research study projects will cost. So, in this case, the university tutors are expected to pay a bond that is about the same amount as the estimated cost of their study project abroad. And given Sri Lanka’s current economic state and the exchange rate of the Sri Lankan rupee to the US dollar, the expected Bond amount for these university tutors is either impossible or unaffordable to be paid towards the authorities.

These university instructors are also confronted with a crisis regarding guarantors. Individuals willing to represent these university professors who are about to pursue further studies in foreign countries. The guarantor will be held legally liable. And if these university instructors fail to return to the country, the authorities will be compelled to collect the bond through the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) or the personal expenses of the guarantors. Due to this fact, many guarantors, including close relatives of these university instructors, are presently reluctant and reluctant to sign up on their behalf. Consequently, this has created a situation in which university instructors find it exceedingly difficult to impossible to produce guarantors willing to stand in their place.