President tells Central Province Education officials:

Education, top priority

Indika POLKOTUWA and Sanjaya ASELA MATURATA

The Government never neglected the Education sector in spite of the heavy defence expenditure involved in a costly war. In fact more and more funds were allocated for the development of the education sector by the Government, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said.

“The biggest allocation of Government funds was for defence. The second highest allocation had been for the health and education sectors and this proved the high attention paid by the Government for children’s education,” he said. “All this was done by the Government to create a disciplined young generation which loved their country and parents and respected elders and people of other communities and religions. If not the enormous spending on education would be in vain,” President Rajapaksa said.

President Rajapaksa made these observations addressing Education officials including directors and principals in the Central Province at a meeting held at President’s House in Kandy on Wednesday.

President Rajapaksa said defeating terrorism was no easy task because the Government had to change the whole mentality of not only the Security Forces and the people but the whole world to pave the way for attaining that goal.

“There was a general consensus that the LTTE was invincible. The Government’s ability to change that attitude among the Forces, people and the international community opened the path for the victory over terrorism,” he said.

The President said there was a time when Security Forces had to confine themselves to bunkers even tolerating various caustic remarks made by LTTE cadres who confronted them without retaliating.

“The Government changed all this and rekindled the fighting spirit of the Security Forces by making them think that the LTTE could be defeated and they were fighting to defend the Motherland,” he said.

President Rajapaksa recalled that when he assumed office in 2005, the country was divided and he had to undertake the formidable task of defeating terrorism in the midst of a global economic crisis.

Amidst this his Government had a very slender majority of a single vote in Parliament.

It was not opportune to go for a parliamentary election at that time and if he did not allocate funds for the war effort, he would have been considered as a useless President.

So the only sensible thing for him to do at that time was to strengthen the Government in Parliament by inviting Opposition members to its fold and ensuring unhindered funding for defence expenditure involved in defeating terrorism.

This duty and responsibility by the nation was accomplished by him and his government in the name of the Motherland, the President said.

President Rajapaksa also said that at a time when the whole world was facing food scarcities due to a food crisis, the Government protected the people by ensuring uninterrupted supplies of food to them through a pragmatic agricultural production program.

WB funds Higher Education project

Dharma SRI ABEYRATNE

The World Bank will fund the Higher Education advancing project ‘Higher Education for 21st Century’ following a meeting Higher Education Minister Professor Wiswa Warnapala had with bank representatives .

On a long term goal of the Higher Education Ministry to achieve qualitative and quantitative improvement in higher education called ‘Improve the Relevance and Quality of Undergraduate Education’, the World Bank will fund the project without counterpart funds from the Sri Lankan Government. The project’s special objective is to develop the foundation of the higher education sector of Sri Lanka while improving the quality and economic and social relevance of the service offered by Sri Lankan universities.

In addition, the project also aims to develop an alternative higher education sector such as professional development.

The project will also strengthen the organisational capacity and the quality of human resources of the higher education sector, Prof. Warnapala said. Meanwhile the World Bank has agreed to provide Rs 200 million to upgrade higher education in the Northern Province under ‘Uthuru Wasanthaya’ program.

“The World Bank allocated Rs 60 million to develop basic facilities and infrastructure development of the University of Vavuniya while Rs 40 million had been allocated for the University of Jaffna”, the Minister added.

The World Bank will fund Rs 65 million to set up a new Advanced Technological Institute in Vavuniya. It has been scheduled to commence functioning within two years.

The Higher Education Ministry has decided to set up another two Advanced Technological Institutes in Ratnapura and Tangalle.