Financial Times

ADB support to update post-distance learning

MANILA - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is helping to modernize Sri Lanka's post-secondary education system through a $45 million loan approved for a project to increase access to distance and on-line learning programmes.

The Distance Education Modernization Project aims to provide a full range of quality courses for secondary school graduates who lack access to conventional universities by setting up a national network of telecentres and affiliated facilities in existing schools, according to an ADB statement.

Spread over 18 years, the project will provide about 1.4 million additional students with access to post-secondary education. Less than 3% of the university age group in Sri Lanka is enrolled in public universities - compared with 8% for South Asia as a whole - even though 25% meet university requirements. "New learning technologies such as distance learning can deliver excellent yet low-cost academic programmes to a wider public that is currently excluded from the conventional system," says William Loxley, an ADB Principal Education Specialist. The total cost of the project is estimated at $60 mln of which the Govt. will provide $10 million and the local beneficiaries will provide $5 mln.