If they won't fight for their salvation, who else would?

Today everyone is a member of some kind of a social network. If you are a facebook user, (definitely you are!) then you must be familiar with the phrases “Happiness is seeing mom smile” or “Sadness is missing friends” with a simple relevant picture. Telling something that makes you happy or sad can be quoted as a sentence beginning with “Happiness is”, “Sadness is” or something else, and with a proper cartoon it always touches our hearts if the described scenario is familiar to us.

So you may be wondering why I am talking about such a simple thing in an article on this paper. Fair enough I would be wondering too if I were you, let me explain. Thing is that I saw a pressing issue for us that can be described using the same pattern of sentences! Without running around the bush anymore, I will get into the situation.

Some of us do not have strong financial backgrounds and our parents cannot afford much luxuries to us. As educations is given free, anyone can come up to the system if he/she has enough talents, which will make them university students at some point. So many talented students from weak financial backgrounds will enter universities and have a very hard time dealing with the financial crisis. That's where Mahapola and Bursary come into rescue. Mahapola and Bursary are designed to backup students with their financial needs and helps them to focus on the studies and become valuable assets for the country one day. Of course nothing comes free in this world, even “free-education” and Mahapola. They are results of tax paid by every citizen in the country who may or may not have their own children benefiting from these services. 

So what if government is collecting taxes from each of you heavily than ever and does not allocate them or redirect them to the necessary areas making the whole system vulnerable to imminent threats? What if that very system which keeps your child's precious higher education a reality, is now slowly taking it away? 

A very common description about campus students is that they are some skinny, beard youngsters without much life left inside them. 

If you listen to a common university student, they may whisper; 

“Sadness is having so much urge to get good food and yet have to settle into cheaper and plain food because your purse cannot afford that.”

That is what happens normally, you can't buy what ever you need even when it comes to food. Students can't afford things that most other people could afford easily. If the biggest problem students have is to get their meals, they what the point of hoping to see that person become a great citizen in 4 years?  That's when they become helpless;

“Helplessness is when you have to stop eating anymore and pretend to yourself and others that you ate enough and it's time to go, because you know that that's all you could afford with your budget.”

However with the time when the Mahapola could not get them even though the most basic needs such as food and study materials, students may try to change some facts. They know they are not in a position to make demands from parents, sometimes parents are also benefiting from child's Mahapola installment. That's when students go searching ways to earn money. Sim card promotions, distributing newspapers for daily basis payment, and working in various places can be their choice. Little by little earning money becomes full time and degree program becomes part time. Even all these is said and done, they cannot earn much income most of the time, that's when they feel;

“Hopelessness is trying to study hard to cover up the syllabus and at the same time trying to earn money to cover up studies. ”

But the downside of this race is that the time and effort students should put into their education and researches is drained away to earn a living and trying to meet up both ends at the end of the month. Projects will be copied from Internet, researches won't take place, students will not go deep in the subjects they learn. Students will not be tempted to buy books for further knowledge and become more expertise in the subject.

“Uselessness is trying to remember all the subject matter in just one night before the examination and after the exam nothing remains in mind.”

But even after sacrificing so much quality time of the university life, my friends still are not able to cope up with all the expenses. Food, mobile phone bills, clothing, study material expenses and many other expenses keep pressing students. They all like to dress something nice and look good, but with the little money they get, it is impossible. Someone said that even a plain denim is more expensive than the monthly Mahapola installment! After earning all the money they could get from other means still they wait for Mahapola which is painfully late to receive from administration.

May be that will make them think;

“Impatience is waiting to receive Mahapola!”

Current Mahapola/Bursary installments are decided more than 8 years ago and very insufficient for today's student life. May be your parents already said that a loaf of bread is Rs.15 – 20/= only and bus ticket for 50km is just Rs: 25/= eight years ago when this Mahapola installment is decided. And now a loaf of bread is Rs. 60/= and you need around Rs. 80 – 90/= bus ticket to travel 50km. So without much difficulty anyone can understand what is the root cause for everything. The installment of Mahapola should be increased and make it tally with the today's requirements and expenses, otherwise students who have financial hardships (well, those who have such difficulties are the ones who get Mahapola !) will not be able to survive with Mahapola only.

What everyone outside the university think is that students are already given Mahapola scholarship and    fighting to get it increased is a act of selfishness. But what they do not understand is that, unlike others university students are still Dependants of the parents and they have to spent a lot in their university time, specially most of the students have to stay in a boarding or a hostel, away from home. For that reason, every campus student is a victim of the current crisis of sky high cost of living. Only difference is, unlike other parties, this group does not have a way of earning, but to depend from poor parents. 

There may be very reasonable explanations for why students fight for this, but still government and government media will tell something very childish. According to them that these requests and fights are fueled by some political party, and their sole purpose is to collapse the government. According to them, every campus has very high quality facilities and properties. Students have no problem at all. The only problem is, politics have interfered and created some false issues. For that I can give you a very good explanation. 

“Three meals from campus canteen and one night in the hostel will make anyone a revolutionist”.

There's no political parties or people who gets benefits from this fights or protests. Only thing behind these things is the heavy load of problems that each campus student have to face inside the university and pressure that has been released from the administration. We only discussed a one matter here, which is insufficient Mahapola installment, but there are so many out there.

Government should address these matter as soon as possible, otherwise most of the students will not be able to do a justification to the tax money that are collected from the everyone in this country. People who pay more than 40% out of any consumer item should see that their children are able to gain the benefit of that. Every citizen should join this fight as one day their children would face the same situation, if this not stopped. And most of the university students should be released from severe financial burdens and allow to focus fully into their studies, do some researches and become assets to the country one day.

All in all, there's only one thing in everyone's mind. 

“Happiness  is to see Mahapola get increased”