New action plan for Higher Education

Dinesh De Alwis

A five year National Action Plan (2011-2015) will be implemented for the Higher Education sector. The Higher Education Ministry has taken measures to implement it by January next year, Ministry Secretary Dr Sunil Jayantha Nawaratne told the Daily News.

The action plan includes the vision, mission, goals, targets and the strategies that the Higher Education sector should follow in the next five years. According to the new Action Plan the Higher Education sector would be categorized under three sectors namely State, Professional and Non-State, said Nawaratne.

The State sector will supervise the 15 local universities and two Buddhist universities while the Professional sector will deal with professional institutes such as Chartered, CIMA, CIM, CMA and ACCA.

The Non-State sector will supervise the private institutions which are offering degrees and Diplomas in Sri Lanka, he said.

The aim of the Action Plan is to upgrade the Higher Education sector and bring local universities to international standards.

The Action Plan is consistent with the strategies on upgrading the local universities, improving the quality of the undergraduates and establishing international universities in Sri Lanka.

The Ministry plans to attract more foreign students to local universities and enhance research activities also.

We are planning to produce entrepreneurs from universities.

“The new action plan will help to build a public-private partnership,” he said

He further said that with the support of all universities and other relevant parties, we will create productive and job oriented graduates for the country.

“We will monitor and evaluate the Action Plan every three months. We are sure this New Action Plan will carry the Sri Lankan Higher Education Sector in a new direction,” Nawaratne said.