Postgraduate Diploma Leading to Masters in Conflict and Peace Studies from University of Colombo
Conflict embraces many things in a real sense. All news items and features in newspapers are one way or other related to a conflict. We encounter conflicts in all our relationships from family relations to international relations at all levels. The conflicts we encounter are not limited only to human relationships, but include the relationships we have with all living and non-living things including natural resources.

The new challenges generate new types of conflicts. For an example, climate change generates many types of conflicts relating to human security hitherto we have not experienced. Hence, the conflict studies become more relevant today with our increasing needs and decreasing resources and greed for development. The Postgraduate Diploma in Conflict and Peace Studies Leading to Masters offered at the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS), University of Colombo intends to impart knowledge and develop skills in the theoretical and practical aspects of conflict and peace in social, cultural, ethnic, economic, political, developmental, environmental and other such spheres. It has a vision to achieve sustainable peace in the country.

The nature of the Programme makes it relevant to academics, lawyers, economists, employees in the government sectors, employees in the NGOs and INGOs, members of the armed forces, police, media personnel, human resource managers, environmentalists, trade unionists, human rights activists and all others who long for peace in their organization and in the country.

This Programme has been designed to address the needs of the present and future societies at local, national, regional and international levels. The FGS had developed curricula for the course modules in the Programme in collaboration with University for Peace (UPEACE), United Nations Mandated University for Peace Studies in Costa Rica. UPEACE provided training in curriculum development, teaching and evaluation to the teachers at the FGS. The collaboration the FGS had with UPEACE had made the Programme to be evaluated at international level and competitive at international level. Many curricula developed for the course modules in the Programme have been uploaded by UPEACE in its website and available at www.upsam.upeace.org.

The course modules for the Programme include Concepts and Theories of Peace and Conflict, Practices of Conflict Management, Constitutionalism and Conflicts, Political Economy of Conflicts and Research Methodology as core course modules and many other optional course modules including Regional Security and Terrorism, Regional Cooperation and Development, Environmental Conflicts, Gender and Peace, Media and Peace, Governance and Conflicts and Multiculturalism and Peace. The Programme and course modules are revised periodically to meet the needs, and a new course module titled "Sustainable Development and Peace" has been added as a core course module to the Programme considering the development related conflicts in-post-war scenario in Sri Lanka. For an example, tourism related conflicts is a topic in the course module.

The programme provides not only an academic qualification but also a gateway to enter into employment in a wide range of fields. It also enhances the knowledge and skills of those who are already employed and enable them to prevent or resolve the different types of conflicts they encounter in their work every day.

Application forms and other information can be obtained from the Senior Assistant Registrar, Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS), or can be downloaded from the website www.cmb.ac.lk/academic/gradustd. Telephone: (+94) 011 2502127; Hotline: 071 1665665. A.Sarveswaran.