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| Sunday, 31 August 2003 |
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Sri Lanka's national university system should be widened - Japanese Professor BY ANTON GUNASEKERA Japan's celebrated higher education reformist, Dr. Michio Sugiyama, Professor Emeritus of the award-winning Gifu University, strongly recommends that Sri Lanka's National University System should be widened, so as to establish a parallel stream of vocational education for the vast majority of students who have qualified for University admission,but have been displaced for 'want of accommodation and allied facilities. Outlining his ten-point plan to encompass the displaced, unfortunate 80,000-odd students who have been deprived of a university education, based on the results announced last week, Prof. Sugiyama stated that one immediate solution would be to set up a series of Campuses and distance Learning Centres, affiliated to each of the 14 universities in our islandwide network, which would enable the displaced, yet qualified, students to obtain an external degree at the end of specialization in a vocation of his/her choice. Present at the 'farewell' accorded to Prof. Sugiyama in Colombo, last Friday, was Human Resources Development, Education and Cultural Affairs Minister, Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku. During the Professor's week long visit, he donated three ambulances, five tractors and fire fighting equipment to North Central Province' Housing Development Minister P. Harrison. Dr. Sugiyama arrived here with longtime Sri Lankan business entrepreneur in Japan, Priyantha Salpitikorale, who was responsible for the creation of the Japan (Gifu City) - Sri Lanka Friendship Organization, whose president is P. de S. Kalinga. Under his Plan of Action, there is provision for the exchange of students from both countries under a University awards scheme, for which Japanese funding would be available,said Professor Sugiyama. It transpired in the course of the interview that four Sri Lankans who had followed a course of higher studies in different spheres of agriculture had been trained at Sigu University by Professor Sugiyama and his colleagues. The four of them are attached to Sri Lankan universities in a professorial status. Other salient proposals in the Sugiyama Plan comprise: *Establishment of 'Public and Private sectors' - sponsored Colleges of Media Journalism, Schools of Commerce, Colleges of Business Management but,more importantly, University-affiliated Open University Centres which would be legally authorised to award external degrees for students who desire to make some day-to-day vocation as their life's career. "You are,perhaps, aware that there are several Asian countries where the farmer and the fisherman hold degrees in Agricultural Practices and Fisheries Techniques. They form part of the new millennium's emphasis on the perennial and time-honoured concept of 'Dignity of Labour'. It is not a shame to confer an external degree on a hairdresser or a tailor, if only he has cultivated through theory and practice, that extra knowledge which not every hairdresser and tailor knows. What's wrong with giving them their due place, irrespective of the vocation?" Prof. Sugiyama posed. |
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