Who in the world submitted this school admission criteria brief to the SC? Is it the same National Institute of Education which gave 5 points for an insane category called parents at educations institutes? I am not an expert on the constitution or human rights, but how fair or constitutional is it to keep a 5-year old from attending a school in his/her neighborhood because the parent did not pass the GCE A/L or whatever? Giving points for politicians? Why?

With nobody taking responsibility for anything, the Chief Justice and his team seem to be formulating policy at a rate. The latest is the formula recommended by the courts for Grade 1-admissions. The Courts ruled sometime back that the admission criteria are unconstitutional. Guarding the constitutions is their business. Good job, hats off.

According to a report in Financial Times “Despite the rapid depreciation of the Sri Lanka rupee, more and more students are seeking a foreign professional qualification which require costly foreign cash.” http://www.sundaytimes.lk/070729/FinancialTimes/ft326.html Interestingly, most CVs we see these days cite a local degree and  CIMA  as qualifications, both completed at about the same time.

University non-academics have been on and off strike for quite sometime. According Ministry estimates the lost working days amount to an unproductive expenditure of RS: 2540 lakhs or a quarter of a billion. The total operating budget for the university system is about Rs: 8 bilion. It is easy to blame the non-academics, but as correctly pointed out in an editorial in the Lankadeepa, many days of work were lost also due to students attacking each other and other miscellaneous misdemeanors. It is about time we put a ruppee value on these disturbances and attach a name to each loss–the name of person at whose desk the buck stops.

Anisha Gupta Senior Communication Associate School Choice Campaign http://schoolchoice.in/campaign/campaign_updates.php School Choice Campaign is directly addressing parents through mass outreach programmes and organising their inherent demand for school choice. We are also taking school choice ideas and ways to implement them to all levels of the government through our political outreach programmes. CCS is also initiating school choice projects to test and demonstrate the scope of school choice.

It is almost fifty years after the schools takeover circular of 1961. Schools for the poor were always fully state-assisted. Elite schools then were administered by independent boards and funded through a combination of private benevolence and state assistance. Elite schools were elite because children of the elite attended those giving the schools many additional benefits. Ironically, almost fifty years after the free education initiative, things have not changed much.

This is a plea for our good professors of science to step up to the role of professors of conscience. Our universities are disaster zones.  Productive scholars are not tolerated. What do they do? Leave the country?

According to the latest SLICTA report on IT industry, in 2006 Sri Lanka needed nearly 5000 graduates but only 1900 graduates were available locally for a short fall of 3000 graduates. SLICTA’s predicted shortfall for 2007 is 5000 (full report at ). Year Demand Supply 2005 4920 1235 2006 4920 1887 2007 7672 2216 These data are based on a survey of IT industries conducted by MJ Consulting. How realistic are these numbers? ((Why is the demand same in 2005 and 2006?

ඉකුත් ඔක්තෝබර 4 වැනිදා ශ්රී ලන්කා පදනම් ආයතනයේ කෙරුනු පලවන සන්වාදය ඉතා සාර්තකව පැවැත්වුන බවද, ඒ සදහා පැමිනි සැමගේ නොමද උනන්දුව සහ සන්වාදීය දායකත්වය ඒ සාර්ථකත්වයට හේතුවූ බවද මම ඉතා සතුටින් වාර්තා කරමි. එම සන්වාදයට අද්ධියාපනයේ අර්බූදය පිලිබඳ විශ්ලේෂනයකින් දායක වූ අන්තර් විශ්ව විද්යාල බල මන්ඩලයේ සිසුන්ටත්, නව අද්ධියාපන පනතක් සඳහා යෝජනාවලියකින් දායක වීමට සූදානම්ව පැමිනි විලුඳු ආයතනයටත් මම විශේෂයෙන්ම ස්තූතිවන්ත වෙමි. සන්වාදයට සහභාගි වූ හෝ වෙනත් වගකීම් නිසා සහභාගි වීමට නොහැකි යයි දැනුම් දුන් අයගේ ලැයිස්තුවක් ලිපිය අවසානයේ ඔබට දකිය හැක. ඉදිරි සන්වාද පිලිබදව බහුතර මතය වූයේ ඒවා විවිධ මත දරන අයගෙන් සමන්විත පැනල ලෙස පැවැත්විය යුතු බවය. ඊට අමතරව නිශාන්ත කමලදාසයන්ගෙන් ලැබුන අනගි අදහස වූයේ අප සැම ප්රශ්න දිහා බලන්නේ අප එකිනෙකාට විශේෂ තැවුල් (concerns) පදනම් කර ගෙන නිසා ඕනෑම සන්වාදයක් ඒ තැවුල් පිලිබද සන්වේදිතාවෙන් කල යුතු බවත්ය.

By circular 890 dated June 07th the University Grants Commission has ruled that all employees who do not report to work due to trade union action be treated as no-pay absentees. http://ugc.ac.lk/policy/circulars/MainIndex/MainPage.htm.