Addressing the gathering at the International Industrial Mathematics Conference 2016 of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Hon. Prime Minister, Ranil Wickramasinghe stressed on the importance of Sri Lanka moving on towards becoming a knowledge based society. He hereby spoke of the education system as a whole and pointed out certain very important and interesting factors that academics should be aware of and should contribute towards.
Prime minister’s speech at symposium Sinhala Text
Some of the key points on which the PM elaborated on are,
- Ensuring that each child receives 13 years of uninterrupted education with subjects facilitating both the student that would find university admission and not
- Improving the artistic and sporting capacities of children so that they would be all rounder’s in the future who have a balance in life
- Making the school the center of society
- The importance of restructuring the university system in such a way that would foster a society based on knowledge rather than on the GNP
- Restructuring the university syllabus every 5-6 as deemed appropriate
- Bringing in a scheme wherein undergraduates at state universities can obtain scholarships or a loan scheme to pay for their education. This he noted was a system implemented in many leading nations of the world which has proved successful throughout the years. He further emphasized that this does not connote that universities will profit in any way and he established the notion that it would not interfere with the system of free education
- Strengthening the bond and relationship among the universities and their Alumni to obtain monetary support to help with the maintenance of these institutes
- To collaborate our post graduate degrees with foreign universities thus bringing in more diversity and quality into our education system
- Equipping our student population with the two national languages of the country as well as English as a link language
- Allocating a fund for undergraduate researches and innovations
He thus concluded his speech sharing many such pointers which were indeed food for thought for all intellectuals present.
Links:
Full speech in Sinhala
[1] http://www.pmoffice.gov.lk/news-list.php?p=PR
[2] http://epaper.dinamina.lk/art.asp?id=2016/06/06/pg11_0&pt=p&h
[3] http://www.sjp.ac.lk/news/international-industrial-mathematics-conference-2016/
[4] https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ranil-wickremesinghejune-5-2016/
