Sri Lanka; Education Hub for South Asia

The Sri Lanka education industry can be valued at rupees 150 billion per annum whilst another 30,000 students who travel overages for education can be retained if we set up world Class Universities which will lead to Sri Lanka becoming a Education Hub said Harvard Alumni Dr Rohantha Athukorala at the SLIDA two day workshop for the public sector.

The value chain of Sri Lanka is well developed starting from primary education to secondary education with 366,000 students sitting for the ordinary level examination whilst 266,000 attempting the Advanced level examination of which a 166,000 qualifying for University education which is a structured method training youngsters to be future ready he commented.

The State universities take the cream of talent which are seventeen universities that are strongly moderated, quality certified and has proven to produce some of the best brains of Sri Lanka. There is another sixty thousand that join private universities/ campuses which are affiliated to foreign universities which are namely British that have their own standards of quality which have proven to produce good quality talent for the private sector.

Given the National budget of 2024 stating that the current top seven state universities will be developed to be world class universities whilst, selected four private sector education institutes can be termed universities post auditing Sri Lanka has set the strategy to be the education hub of Sri Lanka said Dr Athukorala. What is important is to implement these budget proposals including the planned education reforms as Sri Lanka’s track record of implementing budget proposals are quite weak he voiced.

Sri Lanka’s apparel industry is a classic example of where the university system and private sector are linked for value chain development. The final year students of Moratuwa University does research on the apparel industry whilst most the final year graduates gets recruited by the private sector due to the synergy in the curriculum and skill set of the students. Sri Lanka’s apparel industry is world class said the former Chairman of Sri Lanka Export Development Board. This model must be replicated by the Tea industry, Cinnamon, Sapphire and the Tourism Industry. The latter has a very strong working relationship with Colombo University and is another classic example to Sri Lanka said Dr Athukorala.