Returned Academic Excellence vs. Entrenched Academic Mediocrity

At one point in your very perceptive editorial of 10 May titled ‘Pay them more; make them work harder’ you refer to President Mahinda Rajapaksha’s appeal to ‘expatriate Sri Lankan experts including academics to return and help develop the country’. Then you ask rhetorically: ‘But who will want to answer his call, return home and settle for a pittance?’ Please give me a little space to tell The Island the story of two such persons – Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole and his wife Dr. Dushyanthi Hoole, who answered the President’s call and the consequent unhappiness they have had to endure. More…