Sri Lanka’s pioneering entrepreneurial university churning out ‘confident’ entrepreneurs
View(s):Sri Lanka’s Uva Wellassa University (UWU) at Badulla trains its students to become confident entrepreneurs.
“We innovate programmes with multiple disciplines coming together, to form a cohesive interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary) programmes, delivering breadth and skills,” its founder Chandra Embuldeniya during his acceptance speech for Honorary Doctorate from the UWU University of Sri Lanka – Convocation said last week.
Here are excerpts of his comments:
Through experience I learned things that might be worth sharing with you. I learned these from experience and not through hallowed academic pursuits. My father instilled in me a purpose in living, to aim high. Each year at school we wrote essays about ambition. Mine was to be an aeronautical engineer, yet, I never got there. I entered Peradeniya and after an exciting student life, I became a temporary assistant lecturer. I had the good fortune of joining my Maths Professor Kanagasabapathy, to help set up the Jaffna Science Faculty. I started reading for an MSc, twice, but gave up for sustaining livelihood. But then, I had a wonderful all round experience in Sri Lanka and Overseas, working in the private and the public sectors. During my journey, I learnt to be in the blue ocean and create opportunities to lead, and not to battle in the red ocean, as so much energy is wasted on friction. I chose to lead from elsewhere and not in a red ocean.
File picture of Dr. Chandra Embuldeniya at an UWU event.
My next experience with academia came in 1997, when I was invited to be the CEO of Informatics Group, where we had the franchises of three British Universities. My most important academic experience in life came in 2004, when I was invited to set up a new university by Prof B.R.R.N. Mendis, Chairman UGC. That invitation gave me the distinction of being the first private sector person to be the founder vice chancellor of a national university. Since then what happened is history.
Prof. Mendis and his commission members wanted a tangible change in the system without the malaises affecting higher education in Sri Lanka. Those wise men expected from our graduates, employability, attitudes, skills, technology, national development, and no ragging.
Today, recognition has cast Uva Wellassa to an unparalleled league of its own. We gained both local and overseas recognition. Strong differentiating factors made us the market leader of this league. We are different for several critical reasons; with our vision, strategy, fiduciary responsibility, customer perspective, process perspective and the learning and growth perspective we lead this league.
How do we do this? Primarily we cater to the value addition of national resources. We uphold the customer value proposition of Uva Wellassa dearly. We care and take fiduciary responsibility seriously. We cater to the employers needs and make our students the best employable candidates. We make the students practice innovation for value addition. We train essential skills, within the core curriculum needed for success in life. We give the students practical national development orientation. We are part of a unique UWU Family culture. We are founded on robust ‘three pillars of service’. More than anything with education we make our students ‘real persons’ with ethical and moral values, dedicated for value creation for society, unlike an incipient concept of students glorified for strengths in aggression. Those few lines synopsize a whole volume of knowledge, and I invite our students to explore.
The foresight Uva Wellassa brought into higher education in 2004 is realized today in many different ways. I would like to highlight the two currently relevant ones.
Recently, a technology stream was introduced at the A levels. This is a landmark turning point in the modern education system and hence it is a turning point in the economic development ladder as well. Indeed, the technology stream could lead us into the next level of economic development by the higher levels of technology application in producing economic value. I wish to commend this outstanding initiative of the government. This move would be of no consequence to the nation unless the higher education system can adopt the change in the selection process to various programs within the university system. The Higher Education Minister responded by facilitating the adoption. The universities have been instructed to adopt this change via a significant transformation fundamental to the intended outcome. The ‘Faculty of Science’ will be required to change outlook to ‘Faculty of Science and Technology’, literally and metaphorically.
While the idea of technology as the foundation of development came to fruition in higher education in 2013, the seeds were planted several years ago in 2004/5. A forerunner of the emphasis on technology education came with the establishment of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Uva Wellassa University much to the frowning of the loyalists of silo based science education in the country.
The second highlight. Uva Wellassa University, the forerunner of science and technology higher education in Sri Lanka has come of age now. There are 12 specialized technology programmes at Uva Wellassa catering to the specialized technology needs of value addition in minerals, water, aquatic resources, IT, tea, palm and latex, food processing, and entrepreneurship and management. Yet, there are programs other than those mentioned here on value addition at Uva Wellassa without the technology label but giving the relevant technology experience.
When Uva Wellassa conducted the first aptitude test in 2005 there were 5600 applications and by 2010 this had increased to 18000 and we admitted only 550. This showed gaining popularity of technology oriented programmes. However, I would humbly request the council to study recent low levels of applications and take remedial action.
I like to reiterate something for the future that has failed to materialize from the concept of Uva Wellassa. Considering the national need for providing greater access, Uva Wellassa University put forward in its initial concept plan Assisted Self Learning (ASL). This is a web based learning process, particularly to give the opportunity for technology learning. This is yet to be implemented. Setting up of new universities spending scarce capital is bound to compete with other vital infrastructure and recurrent expenditure needs. Obviously, we need a significant reduction in the numbers entering the Arts streams while increasing the Technology streams. The fixed infrastructure capacity thus released can be multiplied, by changing the process of learning suitably to match the required outcomes. Currently popular MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) is similar to ASL we proposed. It is an attractive option for Sri Lanka having high IT penetration. ASL can use the multidisciplinary approach as at Uva Wellassa.
The Taliban firebombed a school bus full of young females heading home from college burning 14 alive. While the survivors being hospitalized another bomb injured more who came to help. Malala a 15-year-old faced this horrendous act of violence against women and education, and dared to campaign for girls education rights in Pakistan. Last year she stopped a reprisal bullet in her head. She was so courageous and continued and helped win a new government policy to put all Pakistani girls in school. She did not stop there.Malala spoke at the UN on 12th July 2013 on her 16th birthday, to propose a new global goal to put every child on the planet in school. Experts say it would cost the same as just two nuclear power plants. Malala now has millions behind her and turned Taliban horror into a powerful new hope – Education for All. I see a similarity in the pursuit of education in Sri Lanka amidst the intransigent political forces. It is a huge task and a challenge for our enduring Minister of Higher Education S.B. Dissanayake. I wish him courage to continue the journey with wisdom.
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus