Located in Horton Place Colombo 07, Edlocate may be invisible to the passer-by, but is far from being insignificant. Edlocate is one of the premier student recruitment institutes in Colombo. Operating in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, they specialise in offering student recruitment in six major education-oriented countries – Australia, China, India, UK, New Zealand and Malaysia.
With their main target country being Australia, the institute represents 18 universities in Australia, out of which 7 of them are Go8 universities (ranked in the Top 200 Universities of the world).
Edlocate also boasts of 2 branch offices in Kandy and Jaffna. Their Australian Representative Office in Adelaide, offer students who are studying in Australia further assistance. Edlocate’s Colombo based head office has 4 counsellors, while its Kandy branch consists of 2 counsellors. All of them are well educated, understanding and most have had firsthand experience visiting the universities in Australia.
The organisation offers direct enrolment of students for Undergraduates, as well as Postgraduate courses. Furthermore, in the event of a student’s entry requirements do not make them eligible for university intake directly, Edlocate is also geared to offer university foundation programs and recognised diploma courses as pathway courses to university degree courses for those students with inadequate direct entry results. Almost all of the universities represented by Edlocate offer employment oriented degree programs which enables the students to apply for employment, immediately following their education.
Edlocate is a Streamlined Agent appointed by the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka for issuance of student visa to Australia. This enables fast hassle free visa issuance to genuine students. It is also registration centre for IELTS examination of the British Council and has its own IELTS coaching centre.
This year, several Edlocate students have received scholarships to attend two prestigious universities in Australia, for their February intake.
Hasini Wickramasinghe is a student of Royal Institute, who sat for her Edexcel examinations in June 2011. Following her passion for Science, she chose Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths with Statistics (Science Stream) as her subjects. She was also the Deputy Head Prefect (2010-2011) of her school, and participated in the school choir, western band and girl guides.
With the support of the dedicated staff at Royal Institute, she achieved the exceptional result of 4A’s, and decided to apply to several universities. Having come across and article in the newspaper about the University of Melbourne, she contacted the university, who then directed her to Edlocate.
“Although I applied to other countries, it was a “dream come true” to study in Australia,” Hasini says. Having applied through Edlocate, and recommended by them Hasini received a 100% scholarship to study for a Bachelor of Bio Medicine at the University of Melbourne.
She is deeply grateful to the assistance she was given throughout the process including the visa application, by Edlocate.
When asked what she hopes to do in the future, her spontaneous response was “I want to continue with my studies, but also come back and serve my country as a Cancer Services Scientist.”
Hasini also wished to thank her parents for their guidance and support, her school teachers and management (her principal, Mrs. I. Gunawardene and Chairman, Mr. G. T. Bandara in particular) and especially Edlocate, for helping her achieve her dreams.
Nimha Pathirage also gained a 50% scholarship to study a Bachelor degree in Commerce at the University of Melbourne. She is a student of Museaus College Colombo. As well as being a senior school prefect, she was also a part of many clubs and societies, while also writing for the school’s term end newspaper and participating in sports such as swimming and squash.
“I entered the London A/L stream from grade 8, and sat for the 2011 A/L exam, studying accounting, business studies, economics and maths,” she explains. Her future ambition is to become a businesswoman, although she says she chose the Commerce stream following in the footsteps of her sister and brother.
Nimha achieved 4A grades, and was also placed 1st in the World in Accounting (after having obtained 600/600 marks) and the World’s 6th in Business Studies at the London Advanced Level Examination May/June 2011. She is ever so thankful to her principal and all the teachers for the support she received in achieving these results and says that she is proud to be from Meuseus.
Although wanting to apply to universities in the US and UK, Nimha decided to apply to Australia first and her aim was to study at the University of Melbourne. “It was a dream of mine to go to the University of Melbourne, because its one of the leading universities on a Global scale,” she says. She is delighted that the university recognised her talents and offered her a scholarship and waits to do the first degree in Commerce, majoring in Accounting and Finance.
She also goes on to say that it was Edlocate that encouraged her to apply for a scholarship, foreseeing that she had a good chance to secure one. “From the time I applied, until now, Edlocate has helped me a lot,” she says with gratitude which her parents too had endorsed.
As for the future, Nimha plans to enter the work business world in Australia get international exposure, achieving her dream of becoming a top businesswoman and, one day, starting her own business. However, for now, her future is a wide open landscape of opportunities…
Vijini Dahanayake from Gateway International, was the school’s games captain, and also participated in many sports, such as netball, athletics and swimming etc. She decided to study in the Commerce stream, recognising her affluence for business studies, accounting and maths (as well as IT), which were her chosen subjects. She couldn’t have been more accurate.
Following the guidance and persistence of her teachers, she attained 3A’s and 1C (IT) at her London Advanced Level Examinations. With thoughts of studying commerce, and majoring in accounting, Vijini decided to apply to universities in Australia.
With many relatives in Australia, and thoughts of fitting in well with the Australian culture, she applied to the University of New South Whales (UNSW) which was her first choice. She had heard of the reputation of the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) linked to UNSW. Owing to her exceptional A/L results, UNSW was quick to offer Vijini a 50% scholarship to study in its school of Commerce.
Coming into contact with Edlocate through the father of her best friend, Vijini thanks all at Edlocate especially the Srimali who handled her case as the counsellor for helping, guiding and assisting her through the university enrolment and visa processes, which she says would have been difficult without their assistance. Vijini wishes to thank Mr. Chamath Peiris (her Business Studies teacher), Mr. R. I. T. Alles (her principal) and her parents for their unending support.
In the future, Vijini too hopes to get work experience in Australia, do further studies and one day come back to Sri Lanka. As to her area of work in the business field, she says that, although her parents want her to do accounting, she prefers to get into management.
Well I was glad I met the counsellors and support staff at Edlocate, had the opportunity to get to know first hand how professionally they handle students who wish to study overseas. It was also quite an experience to meet three bright young students who now go to Australia with so much of hope and aspirations to do well in studies and keep the Sri Lanka flag flying high in 2 prestigious Australian universities.
- Avanti Samarasekera
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