SLIIT to enrol South Asian students
Student enrolment increased last year:
Harshini Perera
The Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) has planned
to enrol students from India, Bangladesh and Maldives. Initially the
students will be from the region according to proximity and then SLIIT
will cater countries such as Pakistan and the Middle East in the next
phase, Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT),
President/CEO, Prof. Lalith B. Gamage told the Daily News Business.
Prof. Lalith Gamage |
He said a large number of students in India migrate to countries like
Australia and the UK. The middle class of those countries is the
customer we have targeted since they are large in numbers.
Education institutes in those countries will not cater to all the
sectors of the country but a specialized segment of society, that is the
upper class.
Some of the institutes do not have partnerships with foreign bodies.
“Hence, our involvement fills that gap and students have to arrive in
Sri Lanka to gain education. We will establish branches in those
countries at the latter phase of our involvement in their education,” he
said.
SLIIT has also increased new student enrolments to 2,000 in 2009.
This is compared to 1,500 students in year 2008. SLIIT has been
providing services to large number of IT companies in Sri Lanka.
SLIIT will have its presence soon in Jaffna by the end of this year.
At present, there are 5,000 students in SLIIT and we came up the idea
of expansion.
Therefore, SLIIT constructed a building in Malabe and expanded the
Metro-Campus in Merchant Tower, Colombo. He said that the Matara centre
has been upgraded and relocated with a new building to cater to a wider
sphere of students.
“We need to expand the range of degree programs into multi-media and
computer gaming, business management specialization and new areas such
as electrical engineering, mechatronics and telecommunication. Apart
from that, SLIIT has taken measures to conduct several MBA degree
programs as well,” he said.
Prof. Gamage said SLIIT has introduced new degree programs in
Business Management apart from the three IT specializations in
Information Technology, Information System and Computer System Network
and Electronic Engineering.
In addition, students can follow foreign university degree programs
locally at SLIIT.
SLIIT is involved in 15 partnerships with international Universities
in the UK, Australia and Canada that students can complete two years of
the degree in Sri Lanka and transfer to a University. |