Degree opportunities for all students qualified with GCE A/Ls
View(s):President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has asked the Higher Education Ministry to draw up a plan that allows all students who passed the last GCE A/L exams to follow a degree programme.
Higher Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said two months will be needed to prepare the programme to accommodate all 180,000 students who qualified to enter a university.
The annual intake of state universities is usually less than 25,000 students. Arrangements will have to be made to accommodate an additional 155,000 students for degree programmes.
Minister Gunawardena said four schemes have been identified to accommodate the additional
students.
“Increasing the intake of students to universities, introducing more degree programmes at the open universities and introducing degrees in Colleges of Education will increase the student intake”, he said.
He said they were planning to increase the student intake of universities by 25,000, while in the open universities they plan to accommodate another 100,000 students.
The ministry will be preparing these plans and submitting it to the Cabinet in two months.
- Damith Wickremasekara