GOALS
To increase GDP per capita from
USD 4,000 to USD 12,000
|
Sri Lanka at present
(As a percentage of
students 19-23 years)
|
Goal for 2020-2025
(Student enrollment)
|
Times increase
or decrease to
reach goal
|
|
Number of students who graduated from Government Universities (2017)
|
7%
|
25,200
|
16.67%
|
60,000
|
Increase by
2.38 times
|
|
Number of students who graduated from local private universities (2017)
|
4.1%
|
15,000
|
29.23%
|
105,228
|
Increase by
7.1 times
|
|
Number of students who study abroad
|
4.1%
|
15,000
|
4.1%
|
15,000
|
|
|
Number of students who completed the vocational training (2017)
|
22%
|
79,200
|
40%
|
144,000
|
Increase by
1.8 times
|
|
Unskilled labor contribution to the labor force (housemaids, day labourers, etc.)
|
62.8%
|
225,600
|
10%
|
36,000
|
Decrease by
6.28 times
|
|
Students per annum
|
|
360,000
|
|
360,000
|
|
- Increase the number of graduates from Government Universities from 25,200 to 60,000 and graduates from local private universities from 15,000 to 105,228.
- Increase the total number of university graduates to 180,000 from the total 360,000 students per annum.
ACTION PLAN
- Increase the intake capacity of students in Government universities from 30,000 to 60,000.
- Improve existing university rankings by further working on development of low
scored areas.
Benchmarking Times Higher Education World University Ranking.
- Improve teaching and learning environment.
- Increase industry income.
- Increase number of international students and staff.
- Increase number of journal paper publications and citation.
- Provide a job guarantee for all degree courses. Discontinue all Government
university degree courses that do not have a demand in the job market.
- Revise Government university courses to match the industry demand and future
employability opportunities.
- Increase Government medical college capacity from 1,300 to 2,000 medical students
and increase intake of dental students. Prohibition of private medical universities.
- Ensure availability of lectures through an online portal by Government and
Semi-Government universities.
- Provide student loans for those who have enrolled and bursaries for those who
perform well.
- Provide language exam facilities such as IELTS at Government universities for
students who want to pursue further higher education abroad.
- Upgrade existing books in Government university libraries to an E-library platform.
Purchase international E-books and provide them free of charge to all students via
the E-library.
- Upgrade all labs at Government universities with the latest equipment.
- Open Government university research facilities for outside parties through an
online reservation system.
- Upgrade all existing Government university hostels with proper sanitation facilities.
- Follow a standardised hygiene guideline at all Government university canteens.
- Ban all forms of ragging at Government universities.
1980 students have left the Government universities due to ragging from 2016 to July 2018.
- Implement 0% Corporate tax and 0% VAT on higher education.
Corporate tax and VAT rates to be guaranteed for the next 25 years to aid building
private universities and private international universities, excluding medical colleges.
- Provide Government soft loans to build 5 internationally branded universities
within a 30km radius from the Bandaranaike International Airport.
Encourage educational tourism with a target of 50,000 international students per year.
- Encourage establishing of a private university or semi Government university in
every district under the district branding initiative.
- Introduce an education loan of Rs. 1.2 million without interest for every student
who has passed Advanced Level to study at private universities with a target of
105,228 students per annum.
- Create new STEM related departments and department-to-department
partnerships with overseas universities.
- Establish an incentive scheme for lecturers in addition to their salary, based on
the quality of their research and number of journal papers they’ve published, to
increase publication rate.
- Establish partnerships with foreign universities and encourage exchange of
students, lecturers, research findings and expertise.
- Increase enrolment of international students in undergraduate and postgraduate
programmes at private and public universities.
- Translate all textbooks into Braille and provide hearing and visual aids free
of charge.
- Provide online language learning facilities to all citizens in the country to learn
Sinhala/English/Tamil in addition to their mother tongue.
- Provide career guidance in each university
- Encourage tech/science students to become entrepreneurs through advice
and incentives.
- Assist in linking students with relevant industries based on their educational
qualifications for internship programmes.
- Provide mental health counselling in each university.
- Launch a web portal with personal grooming and development videos for
school and university students.
