Spotlight on SL’s South Eastern University: South eastern varsity VC under scrutiny following plagiarism claims

Prof. Rameez Aboobacker  is the Vice Chancellor of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka

When re-examining the research papers of Rameez Aboobacker, a sociology professor and the current Vice Chancellor of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, serious breaches of academic integrity were discovered. Aboobacker began his academic career at South Eastern University of Sri Lanka (SEUSL) as a lecturer, Senior Professor, Head of Sociology, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Culture after graduating from the same university with a B.A. in Sociology. Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa elevated him to Professor of Sociology in 2019 and made him Vice Chancellor of the same university in 2021. The former President selected him for the position of Vice Chancellor, notwithstanding the University Council’s recommendation that he was the third-best candidate.   

Several background incidents from various spheres, academic, administrative and recruitment-related have led to a re-examination of his academic track record in search of means to explain the anomalies and irregularities that have been observed in the way SEUSL had been led; and this has possibly led to the shocking revelations on the academic conduct that has been prevalent and considered normal by a significant proportion of the SEUSL academic community. These discoveries have a substantial influence on the perception of the academic community at the institution, as well as the quality of education and academic opportunities offered to SEUSL students. The fact that Aboobacker is affiliated with this institution in several capacities, including as an alumnus, a teacher, a professor, the dean of arts, and the vice-chancellor, exacerbates this detrimental impact. 

As a responsible academic union, TASEU has endeavored to ensure the academic integrity of the institution and its members. Professor A. Rameez, however, has failed to demonstrate his Academic Integrity by refusing to explain and clarify claims - Official TASEU

 
One of the major well-identified alleged fraudulent acts that elucidate the claims made on the poor quality and lack of ethical practices in the matters of research and academic conduct by Aboobacker is Plagiarizing research from Nigeria and recommending free healthcare for the elderly in Sri Lanka in his research papers.   
In 2015, a team of SEUSL academics led by Aboobacker purportedly gave an abstract of their findings in front of an academic audience at SEUSL. Aboobacker and his two junior academics at SEUSL plagiarised 80% of the abstract of an article titled “Health seeking behavior among the elderly in Edo Central Nigeria” written in 2014 by O.M. Odaman and M. Ibiezug.   

The amusing aspect of this alleged fraud is that Aboobacker and his colleagues were discovered to have proposed the Nigerian writers’ proposal for the Nigerian healthcare system to Sri Lanka: that Sri Lanka should provide free healthcare to the elderly. For the benefit of the non-Sri Lankan reader, Sri Lanka has always provided free healthcare to all its residents, as far as Aboobacker and his accomplices’ generations are concerned.   

Evidence attached - Health Seeking Behaviour among the Elderly in Edo Central Nigeria and Ageing and Health Seeking Behaviour : A Medical Sociological Approach to Nintavur Divisional Secretariat, Sri Lanka

When presenting the alleged fraudulent research abstract in which Aboobacker suggested that Sri Lanka should provide free healthcare for the elderly in 2015, his abstract appeared in the book of abstracts of the Annual Research Sessions of the Faculty of Arts and Culture of SEUSL in 2015, with his name as the primary and corresponding author, but with two other junior academics from the Department of Sociology.   

This symposium’s theme in 2015 was “Emerging Trends in Multidisciplinary Research and Practice.” When applying for a professorship in 2019, Aboobacker avoided the names of his co-authors by citing his work as “Rameez. A. (2015), Aging and Health Seeking Behaviour: A Medical Sociological Approach to Ninthavur Divisional Secretariat Sri Lanka, Fourth International Conference on Emerging Trends in Multidisciplinary Research and Practice, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, Oluvil (22nd December, 2015)”. When claiming points for professorship, he essentially intended to claim entire credit as the single author; had he added co-authors, he could not have claimed full credit. One wonders who the reviewers of this application for a professorship were and whether they were genuine in their efforts for impartiality or if Aboobacker is the sole responsible having falsified evidence by removing co-author names from the
presented proof itself.   

Moving to alleged Plagiarism and fraudulence in postgraduate studies of Rameez, he undertook a research-based study to earn a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Peradeniya. In the Sri Lankan State University system, obtaining this degree is necessary for confirmation in the post of Lecturer and advancement to the position of Senior Lecturer (Grade II). A preliminary reexamination of the sociology dissertation submitted by Aboobacker for this degree has found that it allegedly contains plagiarized material. It has been discovered that Aboobacker allegedly plagiarised chapters from a 2000 essay titled “Social capital: Reconceptualizing the bottom line” written by two American academics called, Vincent Hazleton and William Kennan. In his dissertation, Aboobacker has allegedly copy-pasted its contents (verbatim copy) ) and the intellectual effort contained within the work of these American writers and generated continuously flowing text.   

I am unable to release all the information regarding the investigation as it could be a disadvantage to further investigations. UGC considers plagiarism a serious academic offense.We cannot investigate this issue for months and months. Therefore a swift and firm decision would soon be taken, - Senior Prof. Sampath Amarathunga UGC Chairman

Aboobacker was awarded with the degree of Master of Philosophy in 2010 after the conclusion of his education, which seems to have begun in the academic year 2005/2006 in Peradeniya. As of mid-December 2022, his dissertation is held at the University of Peradeniya general library’s ‘Ceylon Room’ collection.   

The dissertation contains a declaration page on which Rameez Aboobacker states that “the work reported in his thesis was carried out solely by him under the supervision of research supervisors at the University of Peradeniya” and that “it describes the result of his own independent research except where reference has been made in the text,” followed by his signature. We discover, however, that Rameez Aboobacker allegedly duplicated the work of Hazleton and Kennan. In 2010, Sri Lankan institutions, especially the University of Peradeniya, were ill-equipped to cope with the submission of copied work with textual similarities; software tools such as Turnitin were not often used at Sri Lankan public universities.   

In receiving his master’s degree, which was a prerequisite for his confirmation and advancement at his SEUSL employment, Aboobacker allegedly deceived his superiors and the University of Peradeniya. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that Aboobacker omitted the names of his supervisors from the University of Peradeniya when he decided to publish a portion of his research, including allegedly plagiarised material, in 2016 and 2019 under the title “Disasters and social capital in Sri Lanka: conceptual and theoretical frameworks.”   
Established academics of reputable institutions such as the University of Peradeniya would not allow their names to be included in publications that they had not personally reviewed; by 2016, there were numerous options available to academics to review manuscripts for plagiarism; it is reasonable to conclude that these two facts may have influenced Aboobacker’s decision to omit the names of his master’s thesis supervisors.   

The legitimacy of the confirmations, advancements, academic titles and privileges received by Aboobacker after obtaining this degree by allegedly cheating in postgraduate research is a pressing issue.   

“This has become a critical point for the Sri Lankan university education system”- Prof. Amarathunga

The Daily Mirror also spoke to the University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Senior Prof. Sampath Amarathunga. He said that concerns regarding the alleged research fraud by the current VC of the SEUSL had been brought to the attention of the Education Ministry. An investigation is being thoroughly carried out to review the allegations, examine all relevant evidence, and conclude whether research misconduct was committed. “I am unable to release all the information regarding the investigation as it could be a disadvantage to further investigations. Anyhow, I would admit that this has become a critical point for the Sri Lankan university education system, which has come under the eyes of the international audience as well,” he said.   

On another note, Prof. Amarathunga said that as plagiarism detection softwares are extremely expensive, the UGC managed to officially purchase the “Turnitin” software for the university system only in 2020. “Even though we purchased Turnitin, the software only supports a few computers. However in other countries even students have access to this software. Anyhow UGC considers plagiarism a serious academic offense. 20-25% of plagiarism is tolerated in research studies due to the literature review in a dissertation or a thesis where works of other authors have to be cited. Because the author, article, and year must be mentioned when citing from other articles, then automatically, the software calculates that which fills the 20-25%.

But word-to-word copying or verbatim plagiarism is not tolerated on any grounds. Therefore the Presidential secretariat and the Ministry of Education are very concerned about this issue, and we, as the UGC, have given recommendations to the cabinet Minister and the Presidential secretariat. We cannot investigate this issue for months and months. Therefore a swift and firm decision would soon be taken,” said Prof. Amarathunga.   
In addition, he said that a circular would be issued by the UGC to check on the academic integrity of the professors. And accordingly, the circular will include the plagiarism policy, meticulously, paying more attention to the aspect.   

TASEU to take trade union action 

Speaking to Daily Mirror, an official from the Teachers’ Association of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka (TASEU) said that the TASEU would take trade union action swiftly if the VC fails to prove his academic integrity and disprove all allegations against him. 
“As a responsible academic union, TASEU has endeavored to ensure the academic integrity of the institution and its members. Professor A. Rameez, however, has failed to demonstrate his Academic Integrity by refusing to explain and clarify claims. 
Due to the Vice Chancellor’s silence, the academic community’s dignity and reputation have been thrown into disarray. Prof. A. Rameez’s silence and lack of action to resign from his position as Principal Executive Officer of a national higher education institution when his academic integrity is in serious doubt are intriguing,” the TASEU said.   

“This is a calculated move to target me”- Aboobacker

This newspaper also contacted the Vice Chancellor of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, A Rameez, to present his side of the story. Accordingly, Prof. Rameez said that the “Aging and Health Seeking Behavior: A Medical Sociological Approach to Ninthavur Divisional Secretariat Sri Lanka” is a multi-authored, joined paper. Therefore, I am not solely responsible for all the content mentioned in the paper. Also, a comparison is made only between the abstracts of the two papers. I would remind that there is more content to the paper,” he said.   

Moreover, he said that the first article was written in the Tamil language by three authors attached to the Department of Sociology of the university, for which only an abstract was written in English in 2015. “I did not contribute to drafting the abstract; I only contributed to developing other sections of the particular research articles. Co-authors wrote abstracts in English, and it is a tiny portion of a long article. It is a fact in academia that charges for plagiarism/similarity check of an article could not be made based on the abstract. When three authors are involved in an article, why should someone blame only one author while the other two authors have been given impunity? Hence, this is a calculated move to target me and tarnish my public image and dislodge me from the position of the Vice Chancellor of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka,” he underscored.   

“In Humanities and social sciences faculties, there is a plagiarism policy where 20-25% of plagiarism is tolerated. Even our university tolerates 20-25% of plagiarism in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. It is considered a policy. Moreover, in my Master’s Research, there are over 40,000 words in total, and the alleged plagiarised content is not more than 100 to 200 words, which is also under the theoretical part. In addition to that, I wrote my Master’s thesis in 2009, at a time when Sri Lankan universities had not adopted plagiarism policies. All these plagiarism software came into use in Sri Lanka in 2019 and after. Even in our university, the plagiarism policy was adopted in 2020, and we officially purchased Turnitin in 2020,” he added.   

The VC also added that the plagiarism policy for SEUSL was approved at the 200th Senate Meeting held on 22.01.2020 and decided to implement it at the University with effect from 22.01.2020.   
Moreover, he said that it is the fundamental duty of the Editor of the journal/conference to check the plagiarism/similarity check before an article is published in a journal or conference. “Thus, it is absolutely wrong to point fingers at the authors to charge/allege based on one or two articles. I contributed 40-odd articles published in indexed and non-indexed journals,” he added.

Health Seeking Behaviour among the Elderly in Edo Central Nigeria

Ageing and Health Seeking Behaviour : A Medical Sociological Approach to Nintavur Divisional Secretariat, Sri Lanka