According to a New York Times report the Secretary of Education in USA Arne activating the human rights division in department in an effort to force the fifty to states in the union to enforce federal laws that protect poor, minority and disabled students. That means that states and localities that have historically shortchanged these children — by saddling them, say, with watered-down curriculums and unqualified teachers — will be required to do better or risk losing federal education dollars. Such is the way that the central government in USA tries influence the education process es that ar devolved right down to local government level. In Sri Lanka too, If education is truly devolved to the provinces as is mandated in the 13th amendment, our minister of education in the national government can be the regulator instead of the bumbling fool who can not deliver the text books on time or get term tests done properly. What is stopping our national government from doing the seemingly sensible thing?
Following is an abstract of the presentation made by Dr. Sujata Gamage to the Council on Higher Education in Pretoria, South Africa, on February 23, 2010. ABSTRACT Universities are increasingly called upon to contribute to the development needs of a country but the nature of the contribution can vary with the mission or the resource base of the institution. University systems in most countries, by design or otherwise, consist of a diverse range of institutions. An assessment of the contribution of a university requires some means of telling apples from the oranges.