The Sri Lankan educational system has been a subject for discussion for sometime and there has been numerous issues raised over its shortcomings. There has also been extensive discussions and debates for reforms in the university education mainly suggesting that these institutions are not employment oriented and thus its contribution to the economy is limited.
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| The Campus |
In this backdrop, as one of these experimental attempts, the Uva Wellassa University, based on modern educational concepts, came up in 2005 but was different from the traditional university system. It is primarily aimed at the employability of graduates, is results oriented and has been successful.
The person tasked to handle this extraordinary new venture was Chandra Embuldeniya who though essentially not from the university academia, has a backdrop of academic qualifications with a heavy professional experience. Six years after taking on this chllenge, Mr Embuldeniya who pioneered the Uva University – ‘Centre of Excellence for Value Addition’, would be relinquishing his stewardship as vice chancellor next month.
Mr Embuldeniya, a graduate in Mathematics from the Peradeniya University, worked as a Temporary Asst Lecturer in the same university before joining the Surveyors Department, moving into wild animal-infested jungle for an engineering survey taking measurements at Yala-kele. He then joined the Agricultural Development Authority in which period he was trained on Economic forecasting at US Department of Agriculture.
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| Chandra Embuldeniya |
He then moved to the private sector and served in many organisations before ending up as the President of the National Chamber of Commerce in 2005. He was also involved in the transport sector – railway and also in the higher education by being a member of the Treasury Sub-committee on Higher Education. The matter of setting up a university in Uva was discussed during that time and Mr Embuldeniya was tasked to draw up the plans for it and, subsequently appointed the coordinator of the project.
The Uva Wellassa University came up on a 60-acre land in Badulla and Mr Embuldeniya was made the Vice-Chancellor of this different employment-oriented university, within the country’s university set-up. The students of this university have been shaped to become future entrepreneurs and the curricula and research have been focused to achieve this end.
With this unique opportunity provided, according to Mr Embuldeniya the students started revolutionizing with an abundance of new inventions some of which could even stand tall in the world market. Many such inventors were picked up by the private sector and the first batch passed out with more than 95% employed within a matter of few months. In fact one of them competing with 5,000 applicants was selected for a top position in a leading private sector financial services establishment on a salary double that of a lecturer. The achievements of these students are a lot and some of them were featured in the local media.
The activities and the result oriented nature of this ‘different’ university attracted the attention of overseas universities and Mr Embuldeniya was invited to some of these universities to give them a gist of the whole process of result orientation. Some of these overseas universities are keen to set up their branches in Sri Lanka on the Uva University model. In fact one of them is already being set up.
His tireless excellent service to model a university that has shown stupendous results that has stunned the higher educational set up in this country, is also not without fruition as Mr Embuldeniya has already been offered equally high positions in foreign universities to be installed after his retirement.
Education is ever evolving as it is directly involved with the minds of the people and systems are modeled on experimentation. But what is experimented in Uva would stay as it proved to be a correct approach in imparting knowledge to achieve results. |
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