Foreign University Bill in House soon
Dinesh DE ALWIS
The much anticipated, Foreign University Bill would be presented to
Parliament within the next two months after going through the Legal
Draftsman.
Cabinet has sanctioned the Bill and it has been sent to the Legal
Draftsman, Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha
Navaratne told the Daily News. "Legal drafts and translation of the Bill
are currently under preparation and would be shortly presented to
Parliament", he said.
The new Bill which regulates and monitors foreign universities has
been titled "Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Qualification
Framework Bill".
He further said that up to now the ministry has received applications
from 10 universities expressing their interest to set up foreign
universities in Sri Lanka.
Universities from USA, Japan, UK, Russia, China, India and Australia
have shown a keen interest in setting up Medical, IT, Engineering and
Management Universities in Sri Lanka.
Several institutions are already under construction and these
universities will launch their academic activities once the Bill is
passed.
Those universities are planning to set up universities in areas such
as Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Puttalam he said.
Every year, around 10,000 students from Sri Lanka migrate to foreign
countries spending over 12 billion.
The ministry has taken measures to offer local students 20 percent of
the slots in those foreign universities.
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