Social Integration Among the Undergraduates with Different Ethnic Background in the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna

Abstract

Effective social integration makes undergraduate life more enjoyable and productive. Social integration into a new set-up is a challenging task for an undergraduate, irrespective of the ethnicity. The objective of the present study was to compare the level of social integration of undergraduates of three ethnicities at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna (FAUR). Students’ interaction with peers, university support services and the off-campus community and social integration index (SII) were used to determine the level of social integration. Using pre tested structured questionnaire, information related to above three levels of interactions were collected from 63 randomly selected Sinhala, all Tamil (n=35) and Muslim (n=24) second-year undergraduates. Social integration index was developed considering the performance of the six criteria. For each criteria, deviation of the existing performance (A) from a set threshold (T) value was calculated to determine the performance of each criteria towards the social integration. Subsequently contributions of each criteria were summed [∑ ±(1- )] to construct SII. Among the five closest university friends of a Sinhala student, there were no Tamil or Muslim students. The closest five friends of both Tamil and Muslim students had friends of other ethnicities. Percentages of students who engaged in extra-curricular activities were not statistically different among three ethnicities. Percentages of Tamil and Muslim students who knew 10 key officials of the Faculty were significantly higher than that of Sinhala student. Compared to Sinhala, Tamil students had visited significantly a higher number of religious, cultural and tourist attractions around the area and knew more families live around the Faculty. Though not statistically different (Chi-square p>0.05) among three ethnicities, more Tamil (63%) and Muslim (74%) than Sinhala students (52%) admitted that all three ethnicities have socially well integrated. The social integration index of Sinhala (-3.10) students was lower than that of Tamil (-1.2) and Muslim (-1.8) students’. Undergraduates identified language barriers, low knowledge about other cultures and attitudinal problems lower the social integration among them.The study concludes that both Tamil and Muslim students have achieved better interaction with peers, university administration and community resulting in a higher level of social integration than Sinhala students. All ethnic communities admitted the situation is not perfect and thus interventions are needed for further improvements.