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University Colleges to the rescue of A/L qualified dropouts
View(s):Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development is set to establish 25 new Technical Education institutions leading to Degree-level qualifications. The programme is jointly funded with the Treasury’s contribution of Rs 1,600 million, and ADB and World Bank loans totaling to US$ 300 million (Rs 3.9 billion).The institutions, called University Colleges will absorb 20,000 Advanced Level qualified students or those with National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level 4 or 5, said Youth Affairs and Skills Development Ministry Secretary K.A. Thilakaratne. “There are about 300,000 students who drop out of the school system every year.
Our responsibility is to provide further education for these students. At present, our Technical education is not attractive to students. That is the practical situation. The University Colleges will be a different approach” said Mr Thilakaratne. According to him, this project will be able to cater to the current requirement of middle level technicians in the market.
“The standard ratio for Engineer to Technical officers should be 1: 4 but at present it is 4:1, the University Colleges should cater to this demand” said Mr Thilakarathne.The first phase which is already under way, will improve the current colleges of Technology facilities. This year, five such colleges have been improved under the project, and it is hoped 10 more will be converted by end of next year. The University Colleges will provide NVQ diploma courses in 42 subject areas including, fashion designing, heavy vehicle maintenance, irrigation technology, mechatronics technology, and bio medical equipment technology. -Chathuri Dissanayake
| There are about 300,000 students who drop out of the school system every year. Our responsibility is to provide further education for these students. At present, our Technical education is not attractive to students. That is the practical situation. The University Colleges will be a different approach |