Meeting new challenges, D.S.Senanayake College
Down the quiet and cool passage of Gregory’s Road in Colombo 07, stands D. S. Senanayake College in all its glory and splendour. D.S.Senanayake’ College though fairly young, in terms of the num ber of years since its inception, is a school that has reached great heights and demonstrated to greater Sri-Lanka the potential that a school can reach with the right phi losophy and vision in mind. The school was established in 1967, under the guid ance of eminent educationist Mr. R. I. T. Alles who was also the founder principal of the school. D. S. Senanayake is a wholly state owned educational institution which is equipped with state of the art facilities and infrastructure.
The current Principal of the School, Mr. D. M. D. Dissanayake, has completed 3 years of successful service to the school. He assumed duties on the 23rd September 2010 and is the sev enth principal of D. S. Senanayake College, Colombo. . His message to the parents is that the school would focus its attention on a new 5 year plan for the development of academic and extra curricular activities. obtaining good results alone is not sufficient, but we need to work systematically to achieve better results in future. We are strictly following new educational reforms and adhering to the new teaching process. We are now following a student centered, activity oriented, and competency based learning teaching process in the classroom. To meet the new challenges and the competency level of every student, the school has organised a set of educational development projects from grade 6 to A/L classes together with a feed forward assessment process in the classroom, with the assistance of School Development Society and Old boys Association, we have implemented a system for GCE O/ L, and A/ L, in providing special revision sessions, discussion on model papers by lecturers and the new projects have immensely helped the students in comprehensing new education reforms and has produced good results in the exams in 2012. This is a proud achievement for the school. The quality of inputs by the members of the staff, the parents, and other associations connected with the school has paved the way to reach great heights in education. The staff has been trained by professionals to teach through personalized techniques in imparting knowledge. The science laboratory has been developed with ultra sound multi media units. The college grounds has also been upgraded with more facilities. Our objective is to make D. S. Senanayake college a school with all facilities for the children.
The present principal is also conferred the post of colonel in October 2012 in recognition of services rendered to schools and education sector. This honorary position is given to people in the capacity of class one in Sri Lanka Education Administrative Services.
Mr. D. M. D. Dissanayake said that he will also undertake to develop under priviledge schools in remote areas with the participation of OBA and school development society.
. The school recognizes that the teachers are the first point of contact for the students, and hence the school has taken initiatives to conduct staff development programmes to improve teaching techniques. However, the school is not complacent about the academic achieve ments of its students and stresses the need to further improve on the academic results, ‘‘ parents should support their children to achieve these goals, without their support it is difficult to accomplish this” stresses the principal Mr.D.M.D. Dissanayake.
The school is currently in the process of refurbishing the R. I. T Alles Hall, and upon completion it will be an ultra modern hall, which can accommodate up to 2500 individuals. The hall will also be equipped with air- conditioning, Dolby sound system, cctv cameras with separate VIP facilities. The principal stated that many obstacles has to be faced by us, to complete the hall due to limitation of funds.
The media Advisor to the school development society Mr. J. M. Ruzzan stated that media campaign carried out by the media unit has been an eye opener for the parents to voluntarily assist the school to refurbish the hall and we are proud to state that this is parent built school.