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IT gateway at Malabe

The SLIIT campus at Malabe costing 350 million rupees comprises a massive complex of ten three storeyed buildings spacious enough to accommodate 5000 students.

Malabe is expected to produce 1200 IT professionals a year from 2002. The ground work to establish two more IT parks at Dompe (Pugoda) and Dampe (Piliyandala) is also being undertaken at present.

The Malabe Campus has a conference hall for 650 students, 20 laboratories equipped with computers, 12 lecture halls, a library complex, a canteen and a shopping complex.

Parallel to the opening of the new Centre, "Convergence Technology 2001"the first ever Communications Technology and Telecommunications Technology exhibition in Sri Lanka will be conducted at the same venue from November 29 to December 2.

The SLIIT is a joint project inaugurated two years ago under the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Internal and External Trade and Food, pioneered by the then Minister Kingsley T. Wickremaratne who is now the Presidential Advisor on International Trade.

Realising the importance of Information Technology industry the Government plans to introduce a National Policy on Information and Communications Technology with the objective of achieving rapid and sustainable socio-economic development.

The policy will address shortcomings in this sector and promote the growth of software development and exports. A National Policy on IT in School Education was also launched recently in line with this goal.

The Sri Lankan IT industry has seen tremendous development with all types of IT service providers, hardware, software, computer education and training, Internet and communications services mushrooming countrywide as the government has clearly understood the urgency of expanding the IT sector to keep pace with the world. It has identified this sector as one of the main thrust areas for investment.

Amidst the setback suffered due to Asian and global economic crises after 1997, the PA government granted incentives to the private sector to support the expansion of IT education.

Concurrently, the capacity of government sector institutions, universities and vocational training centres were strengthened to produce more IT professionals annually.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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