Dudley at Kelaniya university

Business magnet, Dudley Sirisena, who was invited by the Kelaniya University to deliver a guest lecture on entrepreneurship, was stopped by a small group of students and ridiculed, while he was leaving. The students were hurling diatribes at him and some senior academics were seen pacifying the students. The students were questioning his qualifications to deliver a guest lecture and asking why the lecturers couldn’t do it and what they were paid for.

Dudley Sirisena is a much-acclaimed business entrepreneur and he was there to share his success story with the students specialising on entrepreneurship.  He couldn’t have gone there without the consent of the HOD, Dean and VC. From social media I could understand some academics were very happy of this incident. In their view, he is a persona non grata within the premises of the university.

In my view, listening to a successful entrepreneur like Dudley Sirisena is much worth for students of entrepreneurship. The students were criticising him for hoarding rice and manipulating the price. Suppose he did so and became a successful businessman, what’s wrong in it? Is it a taboo for students of entrepreneurship to learn about how hoarding works in business?

Their lecturers could have learned hoarding from books but Dudley Sirisena might have already employed the process of hoarding in his own business and seen its success and failure.

This incident happened a few years ago when the MBA degree was synonymous with better administration.  One executive officer who was working for a reputed company enrolled for the MBA programme of a popular university here and then he gave it up after studying for a few months. He wrote a letter to an English daily here criticising the course. Among other things, he mentioned that a Professor who didn’t have the experience of running even a tea kiosk was teaching him how to run a big enterprise like the one he was working for productively.

Involvement of skilled professionals and industrialists in planning and delivering of some courses is important to make the university products productive. In most Indian universities more than 10 percent of academic staff is reserved for professionals. Mostly PhD holders are recruited as lecturers through the qualifying exam called UGC NET.

For instance, will our universities recruit our Booker prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka to teach fictions. I don’t think so unless he has a special degree in English with a class. What’s the ultimate goal of getting a special degree in fictions? To write one. He has already achieved it at Booker prize level.

Therefore an agriculture graduate should have  the knowledge and skills to work as a farm manager, a B. Ed degree holder should be a practising teacher, an LL.B holder should be a practising lawyer, an Engineer should be able to build bridges, a degree holder in Traslation Studies should be able to translate and interpret and  a degree holder in media studies should be able write news stories and feature articles. With   an MA in English, if a person speaks halting English then the entire purpose is lost.

M. A. Kaleel 
(kaleelmohammed757@gmail.com)
Kalmunai – 05