Govt aims to improve university standards - SB

Dinesh de Alwis

The Government wants to widen free education and improve the standard of local universities. It also has no intention to destroy the free education system, Education Minister S B Dissanayake said.

He also said the Government also has no idea to destroy university students' future by keeping them in police custody, Dissanayake told a media briefing yesterday.

"We hope the undergraduates will be free soon. We want to take them out immediately but have to follow the country's law. University students should be critical, radical and militant, but priority should be given to education. All these crises are created by the JVP," he said.

The Government spends Rs 240,000 for a university student's education a year. the Government earlier spent only Rs 164,000 on a University student a year, the Minister said.

He said the Government has received Rs 5,000 million from World Bank and Rs 1,200 million from Kuwait to upgrade the university system.

The Government has also increased the student intake to 22,000.

In 2005 it was only 15,000, the Minister said.