Prince Charles privatising Sri Lanka education

[TonyGosling]

President, Prince Charles to lay Lancashire branch campus foundation
Indunil Hewage
http://www.dailynews.lk/business/president-prince-charles-lay-lancashi re-branch-campus-foundation

Five foreign universities will open branches in Sri Lanka. In addition 25 more have made proposals seeking government approval to establish campuses in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales will lay the foundation stone for the branch campus of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) to be set up at the Mirigama Export Processing Zone in Sri Lanka with an investment of US $ 120 million.

The UCLan branch campus will be developed as a strategic development project and this will be the first-of-its-kind foreign university to be established in Sri Lanka in a bid to attract fresh investments and reduce foreign exchange revenue that drains out to various countries from students leaving Sri Lanka for foreign educational qualifications.

The government aims to attract international universities to set up campuses and research centres in Sri Lanka in order to create an international higher education hub that is a cost-effective destination for foreign students.

Some 4,000 local and 6,000 foreign students will accepted for the university while the project will provide 750 direct employment opportunities and 50,000 indirect employment opportunities for people in the area. The university's Sri Lanka partner is UCLan Lanka (Private) Limited.

In 2012, Sri Lankans have remitted Rs. 9,945 million for students who left for various categories of studies in foreign universities.