What happened to our thinkers? Has Sri Lankan academia failed? Are we all filtered fools ?

Today, we are all in search of answers to the question ‘what went wrong?’ How did Sri Lanka come to this state? And all too easily our fingers point at the Government and politicians. According to most, they are the “bane of our existence,” but then, are we putting too much in their slot? Have we given them the steering wheel to drive the thinking of our country, when it’s not really their business to do that? If not, whose business is it, and then the all-important question, what has happened to our thinkers, our academia? Did they also fall short? 

Professor Udantha’s views on how we have failed by not connecting the dots in commercialising our innovations, is a reflection of our current system breakdown, and how much we differ from countries where we can clearly see progress. We look up to those countries and wonder why we cannot achieve the same success. At the bottom of it all we have to ask ourselves, are we a nation of dropouts or more importantly, does the system itself encourage us to be that — to the extent where we stay in our little corner, doing what we think is alright and hoping for the best?