HUST awards Professorship to M. Thilakasiri

AMemorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in 2013, between the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) of the People’s Republic of China and the Sri Lanka Institute of DevelopmentAdministration (SLIDA) to undertake a mutually beneficial collaborative academic linkage for the purpose of cultivating high level talents in the field of Public Administration. As a key national Co-educational Research University, HUST is directly affiliated to the Ministry of Education of China.

In pursuance of the MoU, SLIDA Director General B. Wijeratne and Additional Director General (Postgraduate studies) M. Thilakasiri visited HUST last year and it was reciprocated by a team of academics from HUST visiting SLIDA.

Subsequent to these visits, the Academic Team of HUST was impressed by the contribution made by Mr. Thilakasiri for more than 30 years in various fields of public management, academic teaching in postgraduate degree programmes,

Recognizing Mr. Thilakasiri’s scholarly work the HUST requested Mr. Thilakasiri to submit to the University a comprehensive CV of his career record including work life achievements todate

productivity and quality improvement consultancy services, publications and more importantly his initiation and pursuance to receive recognition from the University Grants Commission for SLIDA to be awarded Postgraduate DegreeAwarding Status.Additionally, the HUST Team was also very much impressed of the institutional arrangements developed by Mr. Thilakasiri in establishing within SLIDA the School of Postgraduate Studies (SPS) for the conduct of the Master of Public Management (MPM), and also the pioneering efforts in the design and development of the MPM Course modules and the course processes.

Recognizing Mr. Thilakasiri’s scholarly work the HUST requested Mr. Thilakasiri to submit to the University a comprehensive CV of his career record including work life achievements todate, for evaluating his contribution to Sri Lanka and the country’s public management sector in particular, for consideration of awarding a professorship.

Accordingly, Mr. Thilakasiri had forwarded his detailed CV to HUST and the University’s Academic Council, after evaluating his performance decided to award a professorship to Mr. Thilakasiri.

The second country study visit programme by MPM was led by Mr. Thilakasiri from 2l March to 5 April 2015. During the study visit the University organized a grand ceremony to appoint Mr. Thilakasiri as a Professor. Sri Lankan Postgraduate students and Public Officers studying in Wuhan City were present at this ceremony.

The uniqueness of this ceremony was that Dr. Gang Lu, Chancellor, HUST graced the awarding ceremony and personally awarded the professorship appointment to Mr. Thilakasiri.