22 January 2021 12:10 am
The expertise of the University of Colombo will be of enormous assistance to the government in achievement of the goals it has set itself, which is significantly to address the mismatch between what is taught in universities and other educational institutions and employment available, Minister of Education Prof. G. L. Peiris said yesterday.
Prof. Peiris made these remarks using zoom technology on the event of its 100th anniversary celebrations “It is a great pleasure for me to felicitate the University of Colombo, my alma mater on this happy occasion. It is a significant milestone as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of faculty of Arts, faculty of science and the library of the University of Colombo. As we look back on that stand of a full century, the characteristics of the University which immediately comes to mind is it’s resilients. During that period university had to face and indeed overcome many challenges. The society of this country had undergone a fundamental transformation during that period. The university has had the strength to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. I would identify that it is a principle accomplishment of the University of Colombo. The capacity for development, change, refinement and adaptation in order to keep things with dramatically changing circumstances, but the university while being proud of its history I am sure will have an even more magnificent future.
It has an important role to play in this far reaching changes that we are contemplating in the education system of our country. It is our intention within the course of this year 2021 to restructure the entire system in order to address a fundamental problem. This is a rather critical mismatch between the education that we provide in our universities and other educational institutions on the one hand and the availability of employment, livelihood on the other. There is relatedly a gap in this regard and it should be our collective endeavour to address this problem. We are also revisiting our curricula. In all these efforts I have no doubt that the expertise of University of Colombo which by any standard is considerable will be of enormous assistance to us in achievements of the goals which we have set ourselves.
This is why I am particularly pleased to deliver these short remarks wishing the University well celebrating its proud achievements in the past and looking forward to even greater achievements in the future,” he said.