Sri Lanka’s public university system is grappling with a deepening academic crisis as it faces a 50% shortage of lecturers, severely impacting the quality of higher education across key faculties, the country’s leading university teachers’ body has warned.
Professor Prageeth Weerathunga, President of the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA), said that while the system requires approximately 13,000 lecturers, only around 6,500 are currently in service.
The shortfall stems from an exodus of 1,500 lecturers in recent years, he noted, pointing to poor salaries and inadequate facilities as the primary drivers behind the mass departures.
“This has created serious teaching and evaluation challenges, particularly in medicine, engineering, and technology faculties,” Prof. Weerathunga said, adding that the University of Peradeniya alone has lost around 150 lecturers.
Despite the crisis, he said the government has only granted approval to recruit between 400 and 500 new lecturers, far below the number needed to sustain academic operations.
“You can’t expect a faculty that needs 10 people to function with only three or four lecturers,” he said.
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