The London School of Commerce (LSC), UK opened its fifth overseas division in Colombo this week with the objective of developing the British School of Commerce (BSC) as a regional international centre to provide quality higher education at an affordable cost to students in Sri Lanka and the region.
The BSC estimates that around 200 students will enroll from neighbouring countries in the first year, attracting a considerable amount of foreign exchange into Sri Lanka. Speaking at the launch, Head of the School, Chandima H. de Silva said, “This vision is very much in line with the policy of the Government to promote Sri Lanka as a regional hub in higher education. Negotiations have already commenced to get approval for the BSC to acquire status of an independent degree awarding institution.”
LSC has over 6000 students from 130 countries around the globe with more than 300 personnel working in associate colleges and offices worldwide. With the head office and main campus in London and associate colleges in Belgrade, Nairobi, Dhaka and Kulala Lumpur the LSC adds BSC as its fifth division in Colombo as a regional international centre of higher learning.
Chief Executive Officer LSC Group of Colleges Timothy Andradi speaking at the opening said, ”the BSC will be a learning centre that will help empower the youth of Sri Lanka, Nepal , Maldives , Bangladesh and India.
The LSC’s associate college in Kuala Lumpur has attracted students from 40 countries and this has contributed positively to the economy of Malaysia. In the same manner we believe that BSC Colombo would contribute positively to the Sri Lankan economy, on the one hand by saving a large amount of foreign exchange that would have otherwise gone out of the country.
On the other hand a large amount of foreign exchange could be brought into the country by overseas students.”
Head of School, Mr Silva added that “ the demand for ICT graduates is high in Sri Lanka. At the moment there are around 25,000 vacancies in this field. A recent study shows that Sri Lanka needs to produce 5000 IT/Computer Science graduates per year. However the total output of both state and private sector institutions at present is less than 2500 per year.
The BSC will offer degree programs as well as foundation programmes up to Master’s level in both Management and IT related education to meet this demand.” |
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