Professionals

IIHE opening avenues of employment for school leavers

Hiran H. Senewiratne

DEGREE COURSES: The Imperial Institute of Higher Education (IIHE) is amongst the oldest institutions in the country that offers many degrees and post graduate programmes for school leavers and corporate sector employees.

The degree programmes that are conducted by the IIHE are mainly from the University of Wales and their most popular programmes are the BSc and the MBA programme.

These degrees have high employability in the corporate world, its Managing Director/CEO Rohan Wijeratne said.

The University of Wales degrees are awarded for programmes offered at over 60 validated centres within the United Kingdom and across the world in countries as diverse as Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, India, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Switzerland and Sri Lanka.

The University of Wales annually awards about 14,000 initial degrees and about 3,500 higher degrees making it the second largest degree awarding body in Britain.

Wijeratne said that all academic work is intertwined with practicals enabling graduates to fit quickly into the world of work both nationally and globally in industry, commerce and administration as persons capable of meaningful contribution as managers and leaders.

Skills and competencies are built up through interactive lecture case study analysis and presentations, problem solving exercises and projects, Continuous assessment through individual or group assignments is a key feature and is combined with end of semester examinations.

The learning environment facilities the development of interpersonal skills and an expanding social network that gives one a competitive edges, he said. All these degrees are subjected to UK quality Assurance Agency therefore the quality of the degree programmes are the same as the UK degree. All their degree holders are considered as the internal students of the University of Wales.

The cost of completing the entire degree programme in Sri Lanka could save more than 70 per cent of the cost than doing in the UK.

IIHE has all the facilities to conduct degrees in Sri Lanka, which is being constantly monitored by the University of Wales annually and their representatives could walk into their institute at any time to monitor the institutes.

All lecturers are from Sri Lanka and the university accredits their qualifications for them to lecture, he said. For the benefit of students, the Institute has arranged student loan schemes with the Commercial Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank to provide quarter per cent below the gain rate for education, he said.

He said that their MBA programmes is one of the popular programmes in the country which has already registered more than 270 so far. The cost of the programme is Rs. 700,000.

This programme designed for three-year part-time and two-year full time basis providing many options to pay the fee for students at their convenience.

They consider 10 per cent discount for all up front payments and is one of the easy payment options offered by the Institute.

Their BSc programme is designed for school leavers, which is a four-year degree programme and in September IIHE will launch a B.Sc. in computing degree course.

“Our BSc Hons in Management is a three year degree programme and they have chances to specialise in marketing, HR or finance. BSc Hons Computing is four years with the placement year and we offer BSc Hons in Computing and they have the option of specialising in management or software engineering,” he said. Leading companies like Aitken Spence and Sri Lankan Airlines are among clients of theirs, he said.

The IIHE is in the process of relocating to a modern building with all facilities to offer a better service to the students.

The Institute is also in the process of expanding their portfolio in the future and they are now negotiating with some universities in the USA and Australia to offer education for local students.