AIT Registrar, Prof. Gothom Arya, leads
mission to Sri Lanka
February 17-18, 2003: AIT delegation, led by Prof. Gothom Arya, Registrar, visited Jaffna University, Sri Lanka. The visit was certainly a landmark achievement in the already well established Cooperation Program between AIT, the Government of Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Ministries, National Universities, Research Centres, Private Sector Corporations and the Donor agencies. This was the first time that a foreign institute was allowed to visit Jaffna University after the MOU signing between the Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE in February 2002.
The very high level contacts AIT has developed in Sri Lanka helped this visit achieve in numerous scholarships for Ph.D., Masters and short-term training. It is hoped that with the continued efforts and high-level contacts, the Institute will continue benefiting from this most useful partnership in human resources development (HRD) and capacity building needs of Sri Lankan ministries, universities, private sectors, etc.
Based on this visit, AIT will arrange for a group of 3-4 senior staff from each university in Sri Lanka for a two-week workshop, including a familiarization visit on academic development to Thailand, where they will visit Thai universities/industries to get exposure to curriculum development on 3-4 selected topics. Due to a successful outcome of this visit, plans will be made for further specific short-term training of 2-3 months in duration for the academic staff.
The visit to Jaffna University of AIT delegation was arranged by the ADB Science & Technology Personnel Development Project, Ministry of Science, Technology and Economic Reform. During the visit, ADB Project Director accompanied AIT delegation. It is a credit to AIT that ADB Director has given the institute the first opportunity to visit Jaffna University, and to meet with the Vice-Chancellor and the Deans. It is also envisaged similar visits, which will be arranged for AIT to meet with senior administrators of Eastern University, Batticalo and South Eastern University, Oluvil.
The ADB Project in Sri Lanka has recently received an allocation of US$ 1,000,000 on the first phase of the Project for immediate assistance on HRD Training & Equipment needs to three universities in the North/East of Sri Lanka. This money needs to be utilized before June 2004. The success of this immediate one-year allocation will be assessed, prior to a second phase of the ADB Project for the three universities in North/East, as well as three new universities in the Southern part of Sri Lanka, that were not included in Phase I of the ADB Project. The second phase will provide funds for Doctoral, Masters studies as well as 1-3 month short-term training. Total value of Phase II would be in excess of US$ 30 million, co-financed by ADB, Manila, OPEC and Government of Sri Lanka.
AIT Registrar, Prof. Gothom Arya, with, on his right, Prof. Balasubramanium Pillai, Vice-Chancellor, Jaffna University; Prof. R. Kumaravadivel, Dean, Faculty of Science, Jaffna University, and on Prof. Gothom's left is Mr. Bathiya Sumithaarrachchi, Director ADB Project, and Mr. Sanjeev Jayasinghe from the President's Office (Further details of the above meetings can be obtained from Mr. Sanjeev Jayasinghe.