Starter Kit. Idea 328 of 500. Cluster 16
Foreign-degree colleges in the east and the north, since almost all of them sit in Colombo
The mechanism, from the book
177,000 qualify every year and 45,000 get a state university place. The other 130,000 are a market only partly served, and the polytechnic is not a second choice when it leads to a job.
The first step
Ask the A-Level students in one school in Jaffna or the east how many would study a foreign degree locally if one were offered, and what their families could pay. Then write to three universities abroad that run degrees through partner colleges and ask their requirements for a new partner. Student numbers and a university reply are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A family in Jaffna or the east who would pay for a foreign degree if the child could study it at home instead of moving to Colombo.
- What leaves today
- Students in the north and east leave home for Colombo or abroad to study, and the fees and the graduates go with them.
Ask first
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask how a college teaching foreign degrees is registered and inspected.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which company form a college with a foreign partner should take.
Check before you spend
What the partner university requires of premises, teachers and libraries, how the degree is recognised here, and the permissions for an education building.
Find out these three numbers
- How many students would study a foreign degree locally?
- What fee can families in the north or east pay?
- What does a partner university charge per enrolled student?
A comparison from the book
British degrees in Colombo. Chapter Sixteen
"Tens of thousands of young Sri Lankans are taking British degrees in Colombo."
Foreign degrees taught at home keep students here; the north and the east are still waiting for theirs.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.