NIBM ready to face intense competition - Director General
 

by Gamini Warushamana

The National Institute of Business Management (NIBM), the premier business school in the country is now ready to face intense competition, said the new Director General of the NIBM Dr. E. A. Weerasinghe.

He said the business institute is highly profitable and as the first business school in the country we continue to maintain the quality and the standard of our courses.

However, we failed in the present competitive environment, because the institute had not recognised the challenges and did not market the service it offers.

Dr. Weerasinghe said that the NIBM will offer its own degree courses and is seeking degree award status from the UGC. Today NIBM offers a BSc degree in Management Information System (MIS) in collaboration with the Dublin University in Ireland. One hundred students pass out annually and this year we recruited the tenth batch for the program.

A new degree course in collaboration with the Sheffield Hallam University in UK will be started in September this year. It is a BSc course in applied computing. In addition, negotiations are now under way with the Leeds Metropolitan University in UK to offer degree courses in management. The British Council will assist the NIBM in this program, he said.

NIBM is also designing non traditional management courses to cater to the industries that lack professional managers.

The plantation management and fisheries sector management are in the list of new courses that will be offered by the NIBM and the institute will work together with leading government research institutions in conducting these courses.

NIBM extended its dimension and started two new units the Economic Research Unit (ERU) and the language unit.

The economic research unit will undertake socio-economic research that are needed by business organisations, lending agencies and foreign development partners, Professionals in universities, banks and other professional institutions, have been registered as resource persons in this unit. The ERU has already started a research on the coir industry for an international NGO.

Dr. Weerasinghe said that the budgetary allocation for advertising is not sufficient to face the competition in the open market.

Buildings have to be renovated to meet the competitive standard in the sector.

The facilities and class room space are not sufficient to meet the demand, specially during weekends.

Construction work on a new building will begin this year. NIBM will be one of the top business schools in the region once these new facilities come on stream, he said.

NIBM which was started 30 years ago has built it own image in the private sector in the country, most of the top rankers in the leading private sector organisations in the country have learned at the NIBM. NIBM was the first Sri Lankan institute that offered professional IT courses. Today the institute is under the Ministry of Skills Development and Vocational Training.