Sri Lanka will set up investment zones to draw international
universities to the country in a bid to boost higher educational services
available to the people, a top official said.
Sri Lanka's higher education ministry secretary Sunil Jayantha Nawaratne
said 'free zones' for education will be set up in Gampaha, Puttalam,
Kilinochchi, Hambantota and Trincomalee.
Investors who can draw reputed international universities will be given
100 acres of land where they can build campuses with all facilities for
students including sports and resident facilities.
"We are considering a budget proposal in this regard,"
Nawaratne said.
Rohan Samarajiva, head of LirneAsia, a think tank said a key cost
barrier for private universities was the initial capital expenditure in land
and buildings, which made fees charged from student very high.
Running costs could be found through fees, which were not very
prohibitive, he said in an LBR-LBO CEO forum.
Sri Lankans lost the opportunity for higher education freedoms after
degree awarding was made a state monopoly, in the style of restrictions imposed
on the people by the Dutch East India Company, critics say.
The current administration is trying to give the education freedoms by
allowing citizens to pay their way through a degree instead of studying 'free'
at the expense of taxes collected from other people through the coercive power
of the state.
Citizens are already going abroad to attend foreign universities at very
high expense and there are also affiliated colleges which offer foreign degree
programs.
UK's University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) is already building a 100
million dollar campus in Sri Lanka under a program promoted by the state.
Source-LBO
www.lankauniversity-news.com
Sri Lanka should get reputed international universities to award degrees. Otherwise they will be like SAITM where medical degrees are sold without proper theoretical or practical training. Just mushrooming university kiosks is not the answer for the higher education problem.
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