Education

University entrance for London A-L students

It is a well-known fact that there is a very high competition to enter a child into a ‘reputed’ government school. Though there are sufficient numbers of government schools available in the country, almost all the parents’ target a handful of schools which are perceived to be higher in standards.

Most of the parents who attempt to send their children to a government school of their choice finally give up that hope due to various reasons. Options available for them are either a private school or an international school.

All the government schools and almost all the private schools operating in Sri Lanka teach the local curriculum and prepare the students for O-L and A-L examinations conducted by the Examinations Department of Sri Lanka. These students if succeeded in their A-L examination are eligible to apply for entrance to a state university. However, entering a child to a private school has become even more difficult nowadays. As a result now the preferred choice of most of the parents has become international schools. There are quite a lot of international schools that teach the London Edexcel or Cambridge curriculum and prepare students for London O-L and A-L examinations. Further there are few international schools which prepare children for International Baccalaureate (IB). Most Sri Lankan students perform extremely well in these London examinations and achieve very good results.

Some of them even reach a higher rating in the world rankings. However, these students do not have an opportunity to apply for a Sri Lankan state university. They have to go abroad and study in a foreign university, if they wish to obtain university education. There are two main issues experienced by them. One is that foreign university education is very expensive and most Sri Lankan parents cannot afford to bear such high expenses. Other than the university fee, the cost of living overseas also has to be borne which is beyond the spending limits of most Sri Lankans.

Secondly, the students have to leave their families and study in a novel environment which causes various adverse repercussions. Some children fail to fit into those cultures; some cannot adjust to the climatic changes. Further, due to natural disasters taking place in many parts of the world and also due to terrorism and political instability in many countries, parents are concerned about their children’s safety when sending them abroad.

However, since 2009, all the London A-Ls students in Sri Lanka got an opportunity to have their university education here without going abroad. South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine - SAITM, (www.saitm.edu.lk) which is the first private sector multi faculty campus established in Sri Lanka, provides the opportunity for both local and London A-L students to pursue their higher education right here in Sri Lanka.

The four faculties, namely, medicine, engineering, management and finance and ICT and media open avenues for those students to obtain internationally recognized bachelor’s degrees from reputed foreign universities. The medical degree is offered by the Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy, Russian Federation. This medical university is acknowledged by the World Health Organization and is five years in duration.

One of the most prestigious engineering universities in the world - the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) offers five different types of engineering degrees. A private higher education institute fully owned by a Sri Lankan entrepreneur, Dr Neville Fernando, SAITM is happy to announce that around 20 percent of its student population are from foreign countries. Some of them are children of expatriates and some of them are foreign nationals. These students bring in foreign currency to Sri Lanka. SAITM is monitored by the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka and complies with its rules and regulations in selecting students and recruiting staff. To obtain further information on SAITM and its degree programmes, interested parties can log on to www.saitm.edu.lk. On line application facility is also provided through the website.

SLIIT - SHU partnership to maximise academic opportunities

The Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT), together the Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), of the UK, aim to gear students with academic opportunities which are advantageous to their personal and professional growth.

As the pioneering institute to produce the highest number of Sri Lankan undergraduates at SHU to date, SLIIT places focus on providing many academic pathways for students to get the best out of their chosen field of study. SHU has been recognized as a top choice for Sri Lankan students studying in the UK, and has the largest total number of Sri Lankan students of any university outside of London, according to a study conducted by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

The partnership between the two institutions allows suitably qualified SLIIT undergraduates to follow SHU’s summer top-up programme, where students have the chance to top up their area of study to the honours degree programmes offered by the university in the spheres of information technology, business management and electronic engineering. SHU Degree programmes are also offered at SLIIT through this partnership in the following streams; Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Business Management, Msc. Enterprise Applications Development, and BSc. (Eng) in Electronic Engineering thereby allowing the students the opportunity to complete the entire degree in Sri Lanka and gain a world class UK degree. Successful students will progress to Masters courses at the University, where job placement programmes also play a key role in aiding students to carve out a niche for themselves within their chosen field of interest.

“At SLIIT, we strive to make these valuable opportunities possible through our collaborations with many acclaimed foreign universities, which have stood the test of time. Our aim is to broaden the scope for education and ensure that only the very best standards are maintained and services offered to our students” said SLIIT Chancellor and Chairman Professor S. Karunaratne.

SLIIT - President and CEO Professor Lalith Gamage said “SHU provides students a host of facilities at affordable costs and is located within a vibrant and friendly city. The advantage with this collaboration is that students who graduate from SHU are permitted to seek employment and secure work permits in the UK for a specified period of time. Students will therefore greatly benefit with this prestigious university’s career-oriented courses and be able to secure good jobs upon graduation”.