Australia rewards eight Lankan professionals

Australian High Commissioner Dr. Greg French, announced on wednesday that eight Sri Lankan professionals had been awarded the prestigious Australian Leadership Award (ALA) scholarship, enabling them to gain PhDs and Masters Degrees in the fields of law, medicine, engineering, economics, trade and food science.

This is only the second year the ALAs have been awarded under the A$1.4 billion Australian Scholarships programme that will target future leaders in the Asia-Pacific, including in Sri Lanka, for advanced study in Australia, the High Commissioner said.

Future increases in the programme will be subject to the effective application of additional resources and conditional on strengthened governance and reduced corruption in partner countries. The five men and three women selected in Sri Lanka are part of an overall intake of 172 ALA scholars from 26 countries across the region in the 2007 intake.

In addition to ALAs six Australian Development Scholarships (ADS) were awarded to Sri Lankan Government officers to study in Australia in 2008. The Australian Development Scholarships (ADS) aims to strengthen human resource capacity in priority sectors of partner countries.

The three men and three women selected for ADS are from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Department of Management Services), Ministry of Finance and Planning, Divisional secretariat in Badulla, National Procurement Agency, Department of Agriculture and Department of National Budget.