Call to create endowments’ culture in Sri Lankan state universities
View(s):A call to create a culture of endowments (donations) to Sri Lankan state universities was made this week by Thilak Karunaratne, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, when be delivered the keynote address at the 34th Annual General Meeting of the Alumni Association of the University of Colombo held in Colombo. He emphasized the need to encourage the culture of making endowments for universities which is virtually non-existent in Sri Lanka. He said that “we have, by our own standards, large corporates, banks, extremely large family owned businesses and other commercial ventures not forgetting high net worth individuals who have the capacity to make these endowments. Yet, we hardly tap them for endowments for our universities.
However, the situation is entirely different in the developed world and even in a few countries in the developing world. In these countries, big corporates generously offer endowments if actively canvassed by the alumni and the universities themselves”. Mr. Karunaratne cited an example where Harvard University currently has an endowment fund of US$36.5 billion. Other leading US universities also have large endowments and they continue to collect funds which are professionally managed with investments in fixed income instruments as well as in the capital market. He pointed out that all these universities have professional fund managers looking after these funds.
He said that even the UK, top universities such as Cambridge and Oxford have reasonably large endowments which of course are not comparable in size to those of the US. He said that he details of what they do with these endowments are freely available in their respective websites. Mr. Karunaratne also raised concerns on the employability of graduates, especially those who come out with a degree in Humanities. He said that the alumni can get actively involved in training these graduates, with the collaboration of the university, in areas where they could be found reasonable employment. He suggested the area of Service Management.
He also noted that there was research to show that this phenomenon of un-employability was common to the region, and that even in countries such as South Korea, graduates spend another two years following courses of studies which will prepare them for the positions available in the job market. Mr. Karunaratne spoke on the need for state universities getting into a PPP- Private Public Partnership arrangement with prestigious foreign universities who are willing to add value to courses and also get their academia to join staff of local universities on short term basis without any additional burden imposed.
The Executive Committee for 2016/2017 comprises Rajeev Amarasuriya (President), Lakshman Keerthisinghe (Immediate Past President), Ms. Suranjani Wickremeratne (Vice President), Ms. Ruwandhi Thanthrige (Secretary), Dr. Naazima Kamardeen (Asst. Secretary), Mr. Jithendra Gunatilake (Treasurer), J.M.S. Bandara (Asst. Treasurer), Ms. Mahesha Amarasuriya (Editor), Ajith Jayawardene (Asst. Editor), Prof. Gihan Wickramanayake, M.K. Gnanasekera, Milton Arandara, G. Wijemanne, Channa De Silva, Isuru Thilakawardena, Nayantha Wijesundara, K.D.R Siriwardena, D.H.W Kirinde and Ms. Ruhani De Silva, with Tissa Devendra, J. Charitha Ratwatte, Thilak Karunaratne, Ms. Ramanee Amarasuriya and P.W. Senaratne as Past President Advisors.