St Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa PRIZE GIVING-2017
The grand occasion of the distribution of Prizes and Awards to the Achievers of the Academic Year 2017 of St Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa , was held on the 14th June 2018 in the College main Auditorium. The Chief Guest for this occasion was Professor Terence Fernando BSc, MSc, PhD, Director of the THINKlab / The School of the Built Environment, University of Salford, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Rev. Fr. RanjithAndradi the Rector / Principal of the College introducing Professor Fernando said it was a great honour to have a famous personality an Old Boy of the College as the chief guest at this prize distribution. Commenting on the great achievements of Professor Fernando the Rector said “He has brought fame honor and glory not only to his ‘Alma Mater’ but to the Island Nation of Sri Lanka as an Internationally leading academic in Virtual Reality Simulation.As a Senior Lecturer went on to establishing aCentre for virtual Reality at the University of Salford. The European Commission funded Prof. Fernandoto define a 10year European vision for “Collaborative Engineering Workspaces of the Future” during which he brought together over 100 companies and research centres f rom are a s s u ch as a e r o s p a c e, Au t o m o t ive, B u i l d i n g Construction, Multi- modal interfaces, System Architecture networking human factors to define a research roadmap for Europe.”
In his ‘ Rector’s Message for the Year under review Fr. Andradi spoke on “LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE IN EDUCATIONIN THIS TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED WORLD”.He stressed ‘Change your words and change your world. Quoting from his report, ” Though I value technological advances, I strongly feel that it has made our lives busier and always occupied, leaving little room for most important things in life such as building and enjoying loving relationships through face to face action and interaction. With the barrage of social media, email and phone conversations happening every now and then, students of today are more distracted, more unfocused and entangled in sweating the small stuff than ever before. It is said that more dreams are lost due to distraction than due to the lack of nascent inborn skills. I strongly feel that we have over emphasized intellectual powers, scientific knowledge and technological skills in sharp contrast with that of natural day to day wisdom combined with enormous skills, spirituality and ethics which are the foundation of our society. We tend to teach children everything except self-knowledge, self-control and the arts of life and happiness. “
“We need to inculcate the true meaning of greatness in human life that goes beyond the winning of medals and trophies and that failure and adversity are not stumbling blocks but stepping stones in achieving greatness in life”
The School recorded yet another eventful year in Religion, academics and sports.
Rev. Fr. Rector quoted asaying by the great Albert Einstein “Once you stop learning you start dying”
In the Academic field St. Sebastian’s College Moratuwa has always been in the forefront of producing eminent people by harnessing their talents, especially in the academic arena. The combined efforts to improve the standard of teaching and the learning process have paid rich dividends in improving the results obtained at public examinations. The Rector thanked the dedicated teaching Stafffor their hard work towards attaining this end.
In sports the following highlights were recorded.
The Sebastianite Badminton players have reached great and tremendous heights in the year 2017. They became the ‘A’ Division Champions in the under 11 and under 13 All Island Inter School Badminton tournaments organized by the Sri Lanka Schools Badminton Association.
2017 was a noteworthy year for Chess in the School.
ChamaraMendis, KavinduPerera, ChathumNilmalgamaMininduMendis and NimeshSamarathungesucceeded in getting into the “Internationally Rated Players” list.
In the “Majors Tournament” in 2017 Master ChamaraMendis in addition to having been awarded a merit, was also the best performer in the Under 17 age group category.
In Cricket,Avishka Fernando, Mishane Silva and Praveen Jayawickrama represented the Sri Lanka under 19 national team and were selected to play in the Limited Over encounter against Australia.
The year 2017 was a remarkable year in the history of Swimming for the College. The swimmers were able to achieve many victories at the National Level of the sport.
The under 15 swimmers won the overall championships at the ‘Mt. Lavinia 2-mile sea swim’
The Rector concluded his report by expressing his sincere appreciation to Rev. Fr. Vice Rector, Rev. Fathers, Rev. Sisters, Vice Principal, Tutorial Staff and all the ancillary staff for their loyalty and generous support.
He took this grand moment of the school to congratulate to all the winners for their tremendous commitment and dedication in achieving this humbling moment in their life. “Make winning a habit” he advised and encouraged all others who were not successful in the year under review to keep tapping the door for they were not far away from winning.