Make higher education available for poor - Prof Warnapala

Minister of Higher Education Prof Wiswa Warnapala who attended the Asia Pacific higher education ministers conference in New Delhi in his address to the conference emphasized the necessity of ensuring that higher education should be made available to the poorest of the poor.

An applicant's ability and not influence should be the criterion for selection to higher education avenues and the state sector should play a pivotal role for changes in the higher education sector, he told the conference held on Thursday. Among the other recommendations the Sri Lankan Higher Education Minister made was for restructuring university syllabi to meet the demands of the employment market, expansion of the engineering and technical education fields, increased and long-standing investment for IT research and education.

He also proposed a fund for collective research in the region should be set up by the education authorities, a report from the conference said.