People's Education

August 05, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka's public sector dominated education sector needs more private partnerships Asian Development Bank country director, Rita O'Sullivan said.

Resource persons include IMF's Sri Lanka resident representative Koshy Mathai, Lloyd Fernando, Indrajit Aponsu, W A Wijewardena, Saman Kelegama, Uditha Liyanage and Rohan Perera.

"There is a need to invest in PPPs (public private partnerships) in education," Rita O' Sullivan, Country Director, Sri Lanka, Asian Development Bank said.

"In Sri Lanka higher education has been a state monopoly and the public sector has not expanded adequately to meet the demand."

Sri Lanka has 15 tax-payer funded state universities and privately owned institutions are mostly affiliated colleges, which do not award their own degrees. The government has just started to approve non-state universities.

There are 200,000 students passing out following the successful completion of their secondary education with only 25,000 students qualifying to entre state universities.

O'Sullivan was speaking at the launch of Sri Lanka's Postgraduate Institute of Management inaugural course on public policy fo