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by Professor K. Tillekeratne Vice-Chancellor

University of Kelaniya, being acutely conscious of the fact that it utilises a considerable amount of public funds, feels obliged to place before the public an assessment of its performance over the past ten to twelve years. The following account summarises the major advances made by the university. It also makes some contextual references to constraints, that prevailed during the same period, but need to be surmounted on the way ahead.

The decade 1990-2000 witnessed the major developments in the landscape of curricular changes in the University of Kelaniya.

Perhaps it is pertinent to reminisce the circumstances that led the university to think about restructuring the programs of study that were operational prior to mid 1989. The disenchantment of educated youth that culminated with the disturbances during the period 1987-89 resulted in the closure of universities for a long period of time. Whilst the employment opportunities in the state sector were dwindling, those in the expanding private sector were growing. However our graduates regrettably did not possess the necessary skills and attributes needed to secure gainful employment.

Thus there was an urgent need to enhance the marketability of the graduates by bringing about value addition to the then existing programs of study.

The areas in which the graduates had been found to be lacking were the possession of oral and written communication skills in English, an understanding of the functions and relevance of Management and the ability in the use of appropriate tools in Information Technology (IT) in solving practical problems which could arise in different employment situations.

The need was for graduates who could transcend traditional subject boundaries between disciplines and are capable of applying a variety of techniques in the solution of problems. It was not possible to achieve the above objective in view of the lack of maneuverability in the structure of the traditional three subject General Degree Course.

In order to achieve the desired flexibility in the programs of study modularisation of the curriculum was introduced. Accompanying this change the traditional end of year examinations were replaced by end of term examinations and a system of continuous assessment. Initially, the project succeeded only in the Faculty of Science and it failed to anchor itself in the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The partial failure of the project in the two latter faculties was due to lack of sufficient time for maturation of the idea within those faculties prior to launching of the project.

This system was reviewed at the end of three years (1993) and due to a variety of reasons it was replaced by the currently operative modularised credit based system together with a GPA evaluation system within a bisemester academic year.

The modularised credit based system has been subsequently (1998) adopted by the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences thereby completing the modularisation and semesterisation of the entire BA (General) Degree program in 2001. The modularised BA (Special) Degree programs of these two faculties commenced in 2002.

During the latter half of the period under consideration the University was able to bring about an unprecedented expansion in the postgraduate education sector. Commencement of a number of taught Masters' programs of one year duration and Masters' programs of two-year duration with a research component has resulted in the enrolment of over one thousand graduate students at any given time.

New faculties

During the period 1990-2000, two new faculties were set up. Whilst the Faculty of Medicine was started in the premises of the former North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) in 1991, the Department of Commerce in the Faculty of Social Sciences was elevated to a full fledged Faculty entitled 'Commerce and Management Studies' in 1995.

The Faculty of Medicine comprises 14 academic departments, three units, 80 academic staff and nearly 1,000 students. The faculty has earned a reputation for its teaching and research activities. The fledgling Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies is experiencing difficulties in attracting senior staff.

The Staff Development Unit (SDU) was established in June 1998 with the assistance of a consultant recruited on assignment basis. The organisation of the SDU was expanded and brought up to a more sustainable level in year 2000 by the appointment of a senior academic as its Director and the setting up of a Core Group, comprising academics and administrators, to assist the director.

In 1998, the SDU developed a syllabus for a 150-hour 'Induction Course for Probationary Lecturers', which was accredited by the University Grants Commission in 1999. The course was designed to serve lecturers, in the initial stages of their career, so as to enable them to develop a clearer vision of their future professional roles and to influence them to set career goals for themselves and initiate timely self-directed action to achieve the goals.

The syllabus consists of six segments, each of which can be implemented independently. The six segments are entitled as follows:

(i) Trends and Future Scenarios of Higher Education and Professional development (15 hours)

(ii) Enhancing Teaching Competencies (39 hours)

(iii) Enhancing Research competencies (39 hours)

(iv) Using the New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT) (36 hours)

(v) Being more effective in the Administration/Management Roles (14 hours)

(vi) Enhancing Counselling Competencies (7 hours)

The syllabus lays down clear specifications in regard to its Aims, Objectives, Methodology, Content, Assessment procedures, Course evaluation and Review. The first cycle of implementation of the syllabus was started in August 1998 and completed in September 2000, the participant group in this cycle being 50 lecturers (Probationary) of the University of Kelaniya.

The second cycle of implementation was started in March 2001 and completed in December 2001. Thirty (30) participants registered for this cycle of implementation and this included lecturers from the Gampaha Wickramarachchi Ayurveda Institute, the Institute of Aesthetic Studies, the Pali and Buddhist University and the Wayamba University in addition to lecturers from the University of Kelaniya.

Apart from the above mentioned course which is based on a formally accepted syllabus and targeted to a specific category of staff, SDU has from time to time conducted workshops to cater to the needs of senior academic staff and administrative staff. The workshops so far conducted for the senior academic staff have centered round issues and concerns regarding the Modularisation of Courses and Design of a Syllabus.

The training agenda for the administrative staff for 2001, formulated on the basis of a needs analysis, was mainly concerned with the development of basic computing skills.Besides the workshops organised by SDU, over the last several years there has been another on-going program for developing IT skills in the different categories of staff, including both academic and administrative staff, according to their specific needs. This particular program is organised by the Computer Unit of the University.

The Faculty of Medicine has its own separate Medical Education Unit (MEU) which looks after the curricular development and staff development aspects of the faculty. MEU conducts training activities for all levels of staff in the faculty.

Career guidance and counselling

Career Guidance Unit was established in 1998 to empower students and graduates to identify and work towards their future goals through the provision of appropriate information, guidance and advice, skills training and job placement services.

The Unit organizes activities in the following areas:

* C.V. preparation

* Interview simulation

* Seminars with the participation of the private sector personnel

* Visits to factories/commercial establishments

There is clear evidence that these activities have assisted the students to form a more reasonable and down to earth perspective of the employment opportunities and in some cases to receive employment offers from the private sector. The growing need for a counselling service in the University resulted in the formal establishment of its counselling unit, the 'Kalana Mithuru Sevana', in June 1998. The unit has a senior academic as its director, a full-time counsellor and several trained academic counsellors, who make themselves available on a part-time basis.

The unit provides one to one counselling and is open on week days from 8.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. The students are increasingly realising the relevance of counselling to their success in life and the client numbers at the 'Kalana Mithuru Sevana' keep increasing and the University is planning to expand the facilities.

Academic staff development

Until 1970, the lecturers (Probationary) were sent abroad to obtain their postgraduate qualifications at university expense.

At that time the salary of a lecturer (probationary) converted to Pound Sterling/US dollar was enough to live in the UK/USA.

The tuition fees were paid by the employer, the university. With the abolition of this latter facility, only the junior lecturers who succeeded in obtaining scholarships/Research Assistantships got opportunities to earn postgraduate qualifications from foreign universities. Majority of the lecturers had to be content with local postgraduate qualifications.

Whilst not in any way undervaluing local postgraduate qualifications, the concern here is that the continuation of this practice could lead to inbreeding and hence decreased academic hybrid vigour.

The quality of the programs of study in the University is dependent on the quality and frequency of professional development opportunities accorded to the university staff. In the case of Faculties of Science and Medicine the situation has been relatively better due to the fact that the junior staff in these faculties usually managed to secure placements abroad by virtue of high scores gained at the appropriate examinations such as TOFFL and GRE.

However, the development of the staff of the Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies has been severely affected by the shortage of foreign training opportunities. Commerce and Management Studies is an area which feeds personnel direct to the Commercial/Banking sector.

The present allocation of funds to the universities, which is done on a historical basis rather than on a needs based assessment, leaves the universities stagnant with little opportunity for embarking upon new ventures.

This is a matter involving both the quantum of funds granted to the system as well as its disbursement among the different recipients.

Consultation of stakehodlers

The traditional practice of including several representatives from industry/professional fields in the council and in each of the faculty boards continues.

Staff-student committees have been set up to obtain feedback from students on vital issues such as contents and transaction of the curriculum.

The Alumni Associations of the Faculties are taking an increasing interest in the affairs of the university.

Lack of sufficient lecture rooms for conducting classes, especially when four batches of students are in the three year degree programs is a major constraint. The present student to computer ratio of 35:1 needs to be reduced to 10:1 in order to allow the students to get the minimum required hours of hands on experience.

This problem has been addressed to a certain extent by the allocation of funds for development of IT facilities over and above the usual allocation for equipment. Annual equipment vote has not kept pace with the global price hikes resulting in overcrowded laboratories and utilisation of obsolete equipment for teaching.

procurement of equipment needed for research is dependent to a large degree on foreign research grants. Though some universities have greatly benefited by the equipment provided through JICA, University of Kelaniya continues to remain an exception.

It is regrettable that a needs based assessment is not the sole criterion for the channelling of Grand Aid to Universities.

Availability of staff

In this regard two aspects deserve mention. Firstly there is a severe shortage of qualified staff in the academic sector, the major cause of this being the remuneration factor. Secondly there is a problem of getting staff to perform at high levels of efficiency, this is evident especially in the non-academic grades where one frequently finds personnel being appointed from far away places well outside the district in which the university is located.

The university intends being extremely vigilant about its innovative projects started in the past few years and will monitor and steer them to their desired goals. In addition there are several new ideas for development in the pipeline.

Assuring quality

Amidst educational innovations, especially when they are innovations aimed at expanding educational opportunities, the reliabilities of educational transactions and the quality of their outputs are liable to suffer unless due care is exercised on an organised scale. With this in mind the university is embarking on the institution of a series of quality assurance measures as mentioned earlier, the various departments of the university have already set up staff-student committees to obtain feedback on the curriculum from students.

A further step in this direction is the adoption of the practice of carrying out regular self-evaluation by each department.

These quality assurance measures adopted within the university will eventually merge into the nationally planned quality assurance system for the country's entire tertiary education system of the future.

Moving into the age of communication

The university is keenly aware of the characteristics of graduates that would be required by the industry in the future. The world is fast moving from its present predominantly print culture into the digital culture. We are in fact now in the dawn of this new age of communication with its digital culture. The new culture will lay more emphasis on knowledge processes than on knowledge products.The implication for the university would be to move away from the fragmented approach to knowledge and provide the undergraduate with multiple intelligences and create knowledge without boundaries. The modular structure of the curriculum adopted by Kelaniya already leaves provision for students to transgress the traditional subject boundaries.

The next step in the university's agenda is the strengthening of the 'General Studies' component of the curriculum so as to enable every undergraduate to construct a more holistic view of knowledge.

Distance and open learning

For a long time the university has been conducting degree examinations for a large number of external candidates without catering to many of their basic educational needs such as study material, examiners' reports or tutor support.

To fill this void the university has taken a policy decision to establish a 'Department of Open Learning and Distance Education' and is looking out for funds for this purpose. The materials produced for distance learners may be used in the more traditional learning situations to raise the success rates of internal students.

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