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| Sunday, 6 July 2003 |
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Lack of funds lead to closure of IT Facultyb by ANJANA GAMAGE Lack of funds may force the closure of the Faculty of Information Technology (IT) at the University of Moratuwa, the first such establishment in the State university system. Vice Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa, Prof. Dayantha Wijesekera, warned that the university may be forced to close down the IT faculty, if the University Grants Commission (UGC), does not release the necessary funds. But UGC officials said that the Treasury had not released any funds for any university this year due to lack of money in its coffers. The University of Moratuwa began to offer a degree programme on IT at the request of the UGC, and funds were to be made available from the subsequent year. The programme was initiated with 50 students and a project proposal was submitted to the UGC for gradual increase of funding for a maximum intake of 500 students and for other infrastructure and equipment facilities. However, despite repeated assurances from the UGC, no additional funding had been provided to the new faculty although it continued to admit 50 students each year from the year 2001. "This has resulted in the IT faculty being subsidised by the other two faculties, Engineering and Architecture which find it difficult to manage their affairs themselves with the reduced allocation, sources said. The Vice Chancellor said that if the government extended its support to improve the infrastructure facilities and provide the necessary fundings, the Faculty of IT was prepared to train 500 IT students per year in addition to training and retraining about 1000 IT professionals through its short-term training programmes. " Otherwise, we have to terminate the IT course, despite its high popularity", the Vice Chancellor said. |
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