In contrast to the lack of police presence at the Hong Kong students' movement against “moral and national education,” which is being conducted by over 30,000 people on a nightly basis, the Sri Lankan government has decided to surround and arrest students. The Sri Lankan students and university associations have been rallying against the drastic cuts in the education budget. Back in the 1960s and early 1970s (before the coalition government's attack on a largely student “uprising" in 1971, killing 25,000) Sri Lanka was considered a model of development. Its key achievements were in healthcare and in education. Now, the healthcare system deals with heavy shortages in necessary medication and insufficient attendance by doctors, and the education system is being even further undermined. The attached video shows student protestors being surrounded and harassed by police near the University Grants Commission. They used tear gas and water cannons on them. Students have also been arrested, bundled in to vans and taken to police stations. Free education in Sri Lanka has helped many people from poor backgrounds to come into various professions that would have been otherwise inaccessible, including medicine and the law. Further limiting the access to higher education will result in an increase of social inequality.
