Social media posts about an undergraduate of the University of Ruhuna, who had allegedly been denied entry to the University’s Eliyakanda dormitory when he returned from a part time job at around 3 a.m., went viral, resulting in many blaming the University administration and the security officials who denied the student’s entry for being ‘insensitive’ while some questioned how acceptable it is to return to the University at that time.

This seems to be leading to some interesting and long discussions, as the said student’s experience has resulted in an official demand for flexibility on the part of the University administration. The Inter-University Students' Federation (IUSF), in response to the said incident, urged the relevant authorities to relax the University’s regulations in support of the students who are engaged in part time jobs. The IUSF’s main argument was that such flexibility is a need of the hour, as many students are affected by the economic crisis and are therefore forced to resort to part time jobs to support themselves.They claim that even with financial support such as the Mahapola Scholarship, which provides a monthly allowance, it is arduous for the students to cover their basic expenses without some form of income.

The IUSF’s concerns are reasonable, and what the Ruhuna University student experienced that night is not pleasant..The impacts of the economic crisis have spared no one, and university undergraduates, many of whom depend on their parents’ income and financial assistance and scholarships provided by the State, are not exempted. Therefore, as people of many sectors have, university students engaging in part time work is not something that is unusual or unjustifiable. On the contrary, Sri Lanka has taken too much time to embrace the culture of adult students engaging in paid work to support themselves, which is an extremely common and recognised practice in many foreign countries.

In this context, as many sectors that have paid attention to changing how they operate in order to smoothly acclimate to the economic crisis, the university system too needs to change. It needs to take seriously the genuine need of university students to earn some money to support themselves, and take the necessary steps to support the students that choose to work. The main demand at the moment is that university administrations be flexible about the entry and exit times of university hostels, and the Ruhuna University student’s experience supports the necessity of such measures. That seems like a viable measure, given the fact that all that university administrations have to do is change their policies. However, if the relevant authorities are ready to actively support working students, they can go beyond changing the policies that apply to hostels’ entry and exit times.

Although the IUSF’s demand is justifiable, it is not just university administrations that need to change their mindsets. University students too need to be flexible enough to understand the nitty-gritties of implementing the kind of measures that they are seeking, especially safety related concerns. State universities are public institutions and universities take a certain responsibility about the safety of the students who live in university owned and operated hostels. Therefore, it is important that university students understand the responsibility that the university administrations are taking, and also understand that allowing any student to enter or exit hostels at any time that they wish to is not a practically prudent move. They need to understand that the relaxing of the said regulations inevitably involves the introduction of some kind of a system to monitor the students that are required to leave or enter university hostels outside of the regular exit and entry hours. This will also involve taking permission to continue and/or officially informing the university administration of their jobs. That would allow the university administrations to continue to be responsible for students’ safety, students to enter or exit hostels without any issue, and for security officers to do their job.

The Ruhuna University student’s experience has opened doors for Sri Lanka to be more flexible and practical about the regulations that apply to university hostels. If both the parties were receptive to each other’s situation, perhaps this discussion will lead to progressive reforms in the State university system.