Congratulations to Dr Harini Amarasuriya (Nominated Fellow 2019), who was yesterday appointed as a Member of Parliament following last week’s election in Sri Lanka. Dr Amarasuriya completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2010, and has been a regular collaborator with staff for more than a decade. Since her return to Sri Lanka, she has taught at the Open University in Colombo. She played an important role in the long dispute between the government and the academic trade union FUTA in 2011-12, and since then has established herself as one of the country’s most respected and principled public intellectuals. She will be one of only 12 women in the 225-seat Parliament.
A recent interview in the Sri Lanka Daily Mirror gives some insights into Dr Amarasuriya's political values.
My life took a bit of a turn after I joined the University, because the very first year that I joined was 2011 when the Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA) launched trade union action over the 6% GDP allocation for education. Right from the beginning I was quite involved in that, which made me a much more public activist on issues of education. I never intended to be part of an election. But I felt this was a moment where some of us who could do so, should step up and take the plunge at least to support some of the causes that we believe in.
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