Some 120 Bhutanese medical students in Sri Lanka are unable to continue their regular classes for over six months now. This was following the protests by doctors and students for months, requesting the government to shut down the private South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), the only private university in Sri Lanka currently training medical students.
According to Sri Lankan media reports, they are against the privatisation of education and claim that opening private universities will drastically affect children from poor families’ access to education opportunities.
Since the establishment of SAITM in 2008, reports say there are minor protests questioning the educational and medical standards of the university.
Out of 163 Bhutanese studying in different universities in Sri Lanka, classes for 120 students have been disrupted. The remaining 43 students studying in Kotelawala Defense University (KDU) are not affected.
Saran Tenzin Tamang, a final year student of University of Peradeniya said they are worried as it is uncertain when the protest will end. “It has been six months and if we lose another five, six months, then we are losing an entire year,” he said, adding that most of their friends have already graduated and working.
“We are wasting a lot of government resources. “This is one of our concern because our government has been sponsoring for our studies in Sri Lanka,” said another medical student Sonam Yoezer.
Department of Adult and Higher Education (DAHE) officials said it is very concerning as even credit transfer of completed units are not possible due to differences in university systems.
Dolay Tshering, the Senior Programme officer of DAHE said their main concern is the safety of the students. “At the moment, we are waiting for the strike to end. But it is running for months,” he added. “We have been waiting from May to June, June to July, July to again there is another court ruling which is postponed to August 3rd. This is something very tricky that we cannot tell our students when the strike will end.”
As of now about 69 students have returned to the country while the rest are still in Sri Lanka. And for those who are here in the country, programmes are being planned to keep the students engaged in productive ways.
