Wisdom Business Academy, the largest CIMA Business School in Sri Lanka has seen a steady growth in the number of quality students. Most of these outstanding students have directly translated themselves to prize winners at local as well as an international level.

The most recent achievement justifying this outstanding performance level is the May 2010 CIMA examination, where Wisdom students secured five out of six subject prizes at the Operational and Management levels.

The direct evidence of quality student enrollments at Wisdom is the fact that, more than 400 students, who have obtained 3A's at Advanced Level examinations from 2007 to 2009 including some District rankers and 3 Island first ranked students, have enrolled for their CIMA certificate level (foundation) studies at Wisdom taking their first steps of CIMA.

Prize winners with their lecturers

The very fact that these students remain with Wisdom until the penultimate TOPCIMA level, is evident in the consistent level of high pass rates obtained by Wisdom students at the CIMA Examinations held twice a year. At a time when most business schools providing tuition for CIMA examinations are striving to obtain CIMA quality partner accreditation, Wisdom stands as a beacon in CIMA education in Sri Lanka, having proved consistent levels in maintaining student numbers and pass rates being an Accredited Quality Partner institute of CIMA-UK since 2004.

The approaches taken by the lecturers to groom each student from Certificate level to passing TOPCIMA have vastly improved. The gradual increase in student ratings of these lecturers for each respective subject has increased over the years since Wisdom's inception in 2002.

At present all lecturers are very proudly celebrating their achievements of higher performance ratings from the students, as well as the recognition from CIMA on achieving outstanding pass rates and subject prizes.

In the May 2010 CIMA Examinations, five more Sri Lanka Prize Winners added their names to Wisdom's prestigious 'Hall of Fame' consisting 84 Sri Lanka Prize Winners and 7 World Prize Winners produced by Wisdom since year 2002.

This list would undoubtedly be doubled when taking into account the students who have missed the World/Sri Lanka prizes by one or two marks during the past exam sessions. Yet again on their own right they are prize winners.

With the syllabus change introduced by CIMA, Wisdom has re-structured its lecture programmes to enhance the learning experience of students preparing them to face the new 2010 CIMA Syllabus with confidence.

The competence and the skills of the lecturers are integrated horizontally between the Operational, Management and Strategic levels and vertically among the Enterprise, Performance and Financial pillars of the CIMA curriculum.

CIMA Operational Level
At Wisdom, students entering the Operational level are given a boost to the learning experience already obtained at the Certificate level. Most students who enter the operational level have already experienced not only the quality of lecturing at Wisdom, but also have taken part in most of the activities, which make Wisdom a lively and enthusiastic place.

The Wisdom lecture panel at the operational level is a mix of solid experience, crowd pulling popularity and young vibrant teaching. Shanil Jayasekera, in his own right is a pioneer at Wisdom and has hands on experience in handling the Financial Pillar in the CIMA syllabus. Although being a stalwart at Wisdom, he has proved to be an example to his junior colleagues by committing himself to personally check all the homework presented to him by his students just before a lecture. Shanil has been a CIMA lecturer since 1993 and conducted lectures for 9 out of 15 subjects in the CIMA syllabus.
He has produced as many as 25 CIMA prize winners. Shanil lectures for Financial Operations in the Operational level and Financial Strategy in the Strategic level.

Sugeeth Patabendige is one of the most popular lecturers at Wisdom, having produced as many as 13 Sri Lanka prize winners. He lectures for Performance Operations at the Operational level and the pass rates for this subject at Wisdom under his sole purview has consistently been above the World, UK and Sri Lanka pass rates. Sugeeth is regularly invited by the CIMA SL division to conduct revision lectures and has also conducted numerous overseas revision programmes including 'Training prgrammes for the CIMA trainers'.

Tharindu Amaresekera is one of the young and most vibrant lecturers in the panel and handles the subject Enterprise Operations at the operational level. Tharindu has over 5 years experience in lecturing for Business Management and Technology related fields.

He is popular for his innovative teaching skills and efforts to develop the writing skills of students and also for relating real world examples to his teaching. Evidently, he has been instrumental in commencing the latest educational reality contest at Wisdom, popularly known as "Wisdom Business Star", which trains students in Business Presentations based on a particular business scenario. Apart from this competition, Tharindu has been instrumental in keeping the student body active in various mass media forums.

Management level at Wisdom
The increase in the enthusiasm for students to remain at Wisdom for the Management level has favourably increased. The reliability of Hasitha Premaratne as the best lecturer for Performance Management (formally known as Decision Management under the previous syllabus) has been cemented by the prestigious award of "Tutor of the Year 2009 " presented to him at the CIMA Global Financial Management Awards held in 2009, having already won the "Tutor of the Year - Highly Commended Award" at the CIMA Global Financial Management Awards held in 2008 and also the Winner and Gold Medalist of "CIMA Star of the Year" in 2006.

Hasitha is the Head of Corporate Finance at Brandix Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, leading the Group's Finance functions and is also the CEO of Leading Investment Holdings Ltd. His lecturing experience expands for 9 years, for CIMA (UK) examinations at Wisdom. He has produced 12 Sri Lanka Prize winners, 3 world Prize winners and pass rates have been consistently outperforming the UK, Sri Lanka and World pass rates. Hasitha's corporate experience in the fields of capital markets, economics, finance and management are a worthy asset to students who are also able to experience his lecturing par excellence.

Students will continue to receive his guidance at Financial Strategy in the Strategic level experiencing a whole practical approach towards a numerical subject. The Management level has got a further impetus by the newly established lecture team at Financial Management and Enterprise Management subjects.

Mallik De Silva and Akalanka Saparamadu have put extra effort to make Financial Management a highly sought-after subject at Wisdom. Mallik has always been a strict disciplinarian pushing the students in terms of homework and this has invariably proved dividends in outstanding student results. Mallik is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka as well as the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants UK.

His exposure in the mercantile sector is diverse, where he has held senior managerial positions in several multinational organizations. Currently he serves as the Group Finance Manager at Richard Peiris Group. He counts over 13 years of lecturing experience in CIMA.

Further Mallik has conducted several CIMA revision programmes at CIMA Sri Lanka as well as CIMA India division and also have produced above average pass rates with two consecutive prize winners for Financial Analysis.

Akalanka Saparamadu is a young and vibrant lecturer in Financial Management and his youthfulness has helped him to get closer to the students. Akalanka is presently employed at HSBC Sri Lanka as a Senior Risk Analyst and his work exposure has immensely contributed to his excellent performance as a Financial Management lecturer and it is well accepted by the students with very high performance ratings. He has produced two consecutive prize winners for Financial Analysis during the past two sessions.

Together with Financial Management, resurgence has been evident at Wisdom in the remaining Management level subject - Enterprise Management. Having already taken a section of the Enterprise Pillar at Operational level, S.Srikanth assumes the whole mantle of lecturing for Enterprise Management, at the Management level and further extends his lecturing to the Strategic level at Enterprise Strategy. It goes without saying that Srikanth is the backbone of the Enterprise pillar at Wisdom.

The strength of his lecturing is evident in his lecturing methods encompassing mind mapping and point-form study guidance. Srikanth is a leading marketing professional in the country, with wide experience in multiple industry sectors. Currently he functions as Director of Marketing at the global MNC GSK consumer healthcare business.

Prior to this he has functioned as Vice President at John Keells Holdings- F & B Sector. This vast experience in the corporate field is hugely beneficial for students especially in the area of Entrepreneurship.

Strategic Level at Wisdom
The strategic level is an amalgamation of the learning experience at the other 2 levels. Apart from Channa Gunawardena, all other lecturers namely Shanil, Hasitha and Srikanth are conducting lectures at the previous levels.

The firm foundation in the respective pillars obtained through these lecturers at the previous levels is consolidated by the same lecturers at Strategic level. Students find this very favourable, especially in answering the common case study set out in each Strategic level examination paper. Each lecturer's expertise and knowledge could be utilized by the student to answer every aspect of this case study. This is in contrast to seeking one lecturer's help at the Strategic level.

Channa Gunawardena, is a dynamic and a hard working lecturer for Performance Strategy and he continues to lecture for students for TOPCIMA as well. Channa is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants UK, and a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Sri Lanka.

Holding an MBA and a degree in Management specializing in finance, Channa has a solid finance and management background to teach students the much needed practical knowledge in order to achieve success at the CIMA Strategic level and TOPCIMA examinations.

Session after session, Wisdom has proved to be the 'Specialist in CIMA education in Sri Lanka' and the flagship among the other CIMA business schools operating in the country. At Wisdom, the student's success is a certainty and it is the key priority of the lecturers and the management as well.
"If it is CIMA it has to be Wisdom…..!!!"