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| Sunday, 25 September 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Expansion of tertiary education by Prof. J. N. Oleap Fernando (Continued from Sept.18- 2005) "We also have a few parents, with the necessary money and outside contacts, sending their children to Universities abroad. The Sri Lankan Government graciously provides unlimited foreign exchange for all such pursuits. "Consequently a small number of well-to-do parents, including many politicians, have unparalleled opportunities to educate their children in the English medium within Sri Lanka or abroad using Sri Lankan foreign exchange. I ask in all seriousness - Is this the equity which the Sri Lankan education system boasts about through a national system with educational reforms, free education, free school books, free uniforms and what not? "Under these conditions is it not blind folly for successive governments not to have encouraged and nurtured a privately managed tertiary educational system to enable a much larger number of less affluent students to be educated within Sri Lanka at a much lower cost. "We must also not forget that we have a number of recognised professional bodies which, without profit motives, offer high quality professional programmes. These professionally oriented endeavours should be fostered by the government in order to provide good quality education at lower cost, to a wider clientele; The State must play the role of a catalyst in these endeavours while also undertaking a regulatory role. "I say once again today that the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) that was commenced in the early eighties by the Ceylon College of General Practitioners should have been the flag-bearer prototype of many private Sri Lankan Universities that would have been able to widen access, enhance equity and increase quantity without sacrificing quality within the shores of Sri Lanka. The NCMC produced well equipped medical graduates and proved the point that the non-governmental sector was able to establish a very successful institution within the few years of its existence. Such an opportunity to provide medical education to a large number of Sri Lankan Students at a much lower cost within Sri Lanka and without any expenditure to the Sri Lankan Government should have been very welcome and may have even provided the impetus to establish a number of similar Colleges in diverse fields in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, political pressures intervened and this pioneering attempt had an artificial death when the NCMC was taken over by the Government as another medical faculty within the State system-spring up suddenly and as usual without any planning increasing the State expenditure on higher education. (Concluded) |
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