A tutorial for the government  THE Buddhist monk, staring
intently at the smoke rising from an incense stick, said the
government was destroying state-provided education because it
was “easier to control uneducated fools”. Maduluwawe Sobitha is
an influential figure among Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhala
population. He is also a loud critic of the government of
President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The monk’s new National Movement
Against Social Injustice is, with other groups and unions,
backing a university lecturers’ strike for more state spending
on education. Almost 5,000 academics stopped work on July 4th.
Like them, he is angry that the government spends a mere 1.9% of
GDP on schools and universities.  On August 23rd the higher
education minister, S.B. Dissanayake, responded by closing down
indefinitely the country’s state universities and institutes. He
accused lecturers of dragging students into their campaign. Yet
students, among them young Buddhist monks, still protest,
demanding that the universities be reopen