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| Sunday, 7 August 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Uva Wellassa University : A fully-fledged teaching university The Uva-Wellassa University of Sri Lanka would be the 14th state funded university in Sri Lanka. This new university would be different from other universities. The difference being that the sciences and the arts would be combined, mainly to cater to the science and technology needs of the local raw material base.
by D. Weligama, President Alumni Association (IWE) Colombo University The Cabinet gave approval for the establishment of the university on this location on October 26, 2004 (annex 6 Cabinet approval). The Cabinet approved the acquisition of the industry land and the tea plantation. The Ministry of Education has ownership now of the land being developed by the UGC under the UWU budget. Procedure The consulting, master plan, architectural designs and construction work for the project is being handled by the state sector Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau approved by the cabinet. The target is to complete the necessary building for the first intake of students in the year 2006 January (annex 7 HE The President's instructions). This procedure was adopted in view of the short time space available for completion. UWU will set new trends in university education in many ways. First, the university focus will be on courses and learning exercises that aim at creating new value to local resources. Value addition to local resource base had never been given adequate attention in higher education and our agricultural resources and mineral resources will be the focus of study programs. Second, this university will cut through the barriers of departments and faculties of the traditional universities to facilitate education in cross cutting themes. As an example students will be able to combine a choice of subjects that previously remained confined to the domains of different faculties. Third, the university will realise the objective of focusing on courses rather than departments and faculties by establishing course committees centred on course directors with the membership of subject coordinators. This strategy will focus attention on students through the courses delivered to them. Competent Fourth, the university will refocus traditional administration into modern operational management processes whereby competent executives will engage in solving financial, personnel, and academic related issues by coordinating with Course Directors and the higher management. This will enable the Course Directors and Subject Coordinators to give full attention to the academic courses. The higher management will be represented by the Deans whose overall responsibility for academic activities will be shifted more towards managing and developing academic and non academic human resources along with certain academic matters to fulfil the mission. The Bursar would also be designated Finance Manager and would be a fit enough person to bring about astute finance management into the Uva Wellassa University, which would have a cash flow running into hundreds of millions. The registrar would be redesignated, Chief Operating Officer and would play the role of planning, coordinating and implementing all operational activities and lubricate administrative processes to cut down bureaucracy and bottle necks. Curriculum Fifth, this university will have the minimum number of Faculties and Departments statutorily needed to get credence from the university act. Thus UWU has a new process and a structure designed to deliver the courses focusing on the local resource base. Initially our curriculum structure will be divided into seven divisions as follows. Division of Science and Technology offering BTech/BSc degrees where intake of students could be from any stream, Division of Management of Science offering BBM/BBA with intakes from any stream, Division Computer Science and Technology offering BTech/BSc with intake from any stream, Division of Animal Science offering BASc Degree with intake from the Bio Science stream and Division of Export Agriculture offering BSc Export Agriculture Degree with intake from Bio Science stream. There will be three faculties and six departments for statutory reason. All the above divisions will be nominally assigned to these departments. The UWU will also have a Division of Assisted self learning to offer degrees to students fulfilling necessary requirements pursuing study courses obtaining lessons from external sources. The UWU will develop a Division of Postgraduate Studies to offer Postgraduate Diploma, MSc, MPhil, PhD in all its streams of studies. The university will select students into the degree courses after an aptitude test. The university will have an intake of 140 full time undergraduates first and gradually increase annually by 250 in a year to build up 1000 undergraduates at the university. The postgraduate population will gradually build up from 5 students in the 2007 to about 90 in the year 2012. As a result of both full time undergraduate and postgraduate intake, the student population will become 1060 by the year 2012. Appropriate Another unique feature of this university will be the lateral entry of students at multiple entry points such as students entering the second year or the third year with appropriate credits in hand. On the other hand students exiting will receive a certificate at the end of the first year and at the end of the second year a Diploma if they so choose to. The courses will run over a four year period. The first year will be dedicated to broadening the knowledge of our undergraduates by providing 5 compulsory subjects, which covers communication, presentation, reading, writing, IT, languages and quantitative reasoning while they should choose 5 other optional subjects complementary to their respective AL studies. For example a Science student will choose 5 Arts and Commerce subjects while an Arts student will choose 5 Science and Commerce subjects. The UWU will be constructed in two phases where the phase I the budgetary allocation is Rs. 350 million (already provided by the budget). This phase will build space needed for the 140 students for the 2005 intake starting in January 2006. Phase II of the university will construct the remainder needed for the entire population with infrastructure. Research This university fulfils the staff development objective through staff learning units, which will also extend its services to other organizations. It has its aim to become the Corporate University of Sri Lanka for strategic human resource development and training, innovative research and conventions. It will also conduct speciality and continuing education process, short term programmes and also provide opportunities for learning after retirement. |
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| Produced by Lake House |
The vision of the Uva-Wellassa University of Sri Lanka will be to become
a fully-fledged research and teaching university, with a strong science and
technology focus, catering to the undergraduate, postgraduate and corporate
sectors with emphasis on continuing education, open and distance learning
and flexible entry and exits. 
