Sri Lanka Education Forum

Is this saving 'free education' or using a section of university students to run errands for JVP?  Please note the timing. This is the first demonstration by IUSF for three years? Where was this IUSF for the last three years? Didn't this threat to free education exist in the period between 2004-7? Why this sudden interest? Has it or has it not anything to do with the separation of JVP from the political alliance it formed with the ruling PA in 2004?  It well known how JVP shamelessly used university students to achieve their political goals ever since 1971. (Remember somebody called Mahinda Wijesekera of ...

Note: We reproduce this item verbatim from Daily News because we see the news value of it from a different perspective. We all know that OBAs and OGAs now exist purely with one objective - getting ones’ offspring admitted to a popular school. They are exclusive elite clubs with membership strictly controlled. It is well known that most of the OBAs and OGAs operate like small mafias. In this environment, it is not a surprise the OBA of Ananda College trying to reinforce its political power by inviting powerful political personalities to its ilk. One can ...

Looks like JVP has come out of its prolonged hibernation. New posters are plastered all over the city, ostensibly by so called ‘Inter University Student Federation’ but don’t we know better?   ‘Rata pura upadhi kada vasa damanu!’ they say. No kidding. They want to stop all ‘boutiques that sell degrees’. Will the opposers get the same treatment vice chancellors Prof. Stanley Wijesundera and Prof. Patuwathawithana got? Dunno. On the brighter side, this is better than demanding to stop all those boutiques selling lunch packets. Otherwise, we would starve.   So why this sudden interest? Has JVP suddenly discovered that somebody selling degrees ...

Microsoft plans to start testing a new education PC called IQ PC and an education channel on its MSN portal in India next month.  The India launch of the IQ PC and education channel will be the first worldwide. It is part of Microsoft's "Unlimited Potential" program, which aims to use technology to increase the reach of education, said a spokeswoman for Microsoft India on Wednesday.  Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the Unlimited Potential program in April.  The new education PC, which is a combination of online and offline content, is likely to be priced at about Indian Rupees 21,000 ($513). It runs on ...

A group of girls returning home from school in Afghanistan's Logar province recently did not for a moment expect what lay ahead.   As they walked down a dirt track, insurgents sprang out of the parched farms and began firing on them.  Some of them fled into the farm, but two girls, one aged 13, the other 10, were killed in the ambush. Three of their friends were wounded.  This kind of attack on schoolchildren, the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan, highlights how the insurgents are trying to disrupt education in the war-ravaged nation.  A surge in violence over ...

This is a plea for our good professors of science to step up to the role of professors of conscience. Our universities are disaster zones.  Productive scholars are not tolerated. What do they do? Leave the country? Stay here and be bitter? There is a third way. Carve out your little domain of influence and make a little oasis in the middle of a wasteland. Prof. VK Samaranayake created the Colombo School of Computing and reigned there until he died. Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara created his own kingdom in the form of the Post-graduate Institute of Management as far away from University of ...

Almost two thirds of homosexual pupils in Britain's schools have suffered homophobic bullying, a survey suggests.   Almost all of those had experienced verbal bullying but 41% had been physically attacked, while 17% said they had received death threats.  The study was done by the Schools Health Education Unit for campaign group Stonewall, which said adults in schools were often behind the bullying.  The government said that all forms of bullying were unacceptable.  Stonewall said the report, on the views of 1,145 young people, was the largest poll of its kind ever conducted in Great Britain.  It presented "a shocking picture of the extent ...

 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) will convene a forum in Sri Lanka from 26 to 28 June to bring together Deans of Education from four Asian countries to prepare plans to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) into teacher education. From 26-28 June, UNESCO Bangkok, in cooperation with project partners Japanese Funds-in-Trust (JFIT), Microsoft (initiating partner) and Cisco Systems, will convene a forum for Deans of Education from Teacher Education Institutes (TEIs) from Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia and Indonesia: In this forum, convened as part of the UNESCO the Next Generation of Teachers (Next Gen) project, Deans will ...

According to the latest SLICTA report on IT industry, in 2006 Sri Lanka needed nearly 5000 graduates but only 1900 graduates were available locally for a short fall of 3000 graduates. SLICTA’s predicted shortfall for 2007 is 5000 (full report at ). Year Demand Supply 2005 4920 1235 2006 4920 1887 2007 7672 2216 These data ...

Dharma Sri Abeyratne COLOMBO: The Rajarata University will not be reopened until the students vacate the University premises, University sources said. The students say they don’t vacate the administrative building until their demands are addressed by the adminstration. The university premises has been declared out of bounds after the students forcefully entered into the administrative building. Following this, the students last Friday surrounded the administrative building and forcefully held Vice Chancellor Prof. K. A. Nandasena hostage for over four hours. The students say, they have to undergo severe hardships as a result of the ...