Sri Lanka’s drive to create a solid information technology base at school level will get a major push from two of Asian friends who agreed to provide smart class rooms with all required computers, smart boards and other equipment to 4,000 schools across the country. During recent tour undertaken by Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena to China and Korea, top leaders of those two countries consented to his request or smart class rooms for schools in Sri Lanka.
While China agreed to increase the number of smart class rooms to Sri Lankan schools from 2,000 to 3,000, Korea too chipped in with another 1,000 smart class rooms to support Sri Lanka’s IT education drive.
Prime Minister Gunawardena explained to his Chinese and Korean counterparts that Sri Lanka has a proud heritage of free education from primary to tertiary levels and a youth literacy level of over 95%, a feat any middle-income country can be proud of.
School education curriculum
Sri Lanka has a student population of 4 million students at 10,000 schools with over 200,000 teachers within the country’s education system and the Sri Lankan government has taken steps to integrate ICT education to school education curriculum since the year 2006.
The urban population of Sri Lanka records a computer literacy level of 39.2% while computer literacy in rural areas and estates are at a considerably lower 25.5% and 9% respectively.
During the last decade, with a mission to drive ICT literacy in Sri Lanka forward, 4500 schools have been provided with ICT infrastructure for student-cantered ICT learning. However, due to the uneven distribution of students within the Sri Lankan education system, the Sri Lankan government could provide ICT facilities to only 50% of the schools in the country.
In these circumstances, it is a great relief to the education planners, who are unable to find sufficient funds for the IT education drive, to get smart class rooms from generous Asian friends.
In addition to providing smart class rooms, Korea also agreed to provide large number of jobs for Sri Lankans. This was stated by Korean Prime Minister Han Duck Soo and Governor of Gyeongsangbuk-du Province, Lee Cheol Woo during their discussions with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena in Seoul and Andong respectively.
Providing new jobs
In addition to the labour force that provides jobs for agriculture, construction and other industries in his country, the Korean Prime Minister also mentioned the possibility of providing new jobs for health services and professional services.
Governor of Gyeongsangbuk-du Lee Cheol Woo agreed to provide employment to Sri Lankan workers under short-term provision of human resources required in Korea only for the harvesting season. This is in addition to the skilled workers and professionals employed in Korea.
Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena with Chinese President Xi Jinping
However, Korean leaders expressed concern about large number of Sri Lankans over-staying in the country after their visas lapse.
Premier Gunawardena thanked the Korean Prime Minister for assistance provided during the recent economic crisis and Premier Han Duck Soo said that his country, as a member of the Paris Club, will always stand to support Sri Lanka and congratulate the Sri Lankan government for its achievement of recovering from the recent financial crisis, to successfully carry out its future activities.
Sri Lanka expressed appreciation to the Government and the people of Korea for the assistance extended during the COVID – 19 pandemic and acknowledged with appreciation the higher education opportunities and training programmes provide for Sri Lankans through Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Korean Official Development Assistance (ODA) and other institutions.
Korean investments
Prime Minister Han Duck Soo, while discussing Korean investments, requested Sri Lanka to take measures to reduce the time for the preliminary work for the future projects to be implemented. He assured Premier Gunawardena that the currently agreed projects in the areas of renewable energy, fisheries sector and joint investment areas will be implemented expeditiously.The Korean Prime Minister pointed out the importance of further increasing the space for floating solar power installations.
Two Prime Minister agreed about the huge potential for collaboration in the tourism sector. The Korean Prime Minister added that the Korean people are also very interested in visiting Sri Lanka and expressed his agreement to support the provision of more opportunities to visit Sri Lanka, which is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world.
When the Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena was holding the portfolio of the Minister of Education, the move to include Korean Language as a subject in the curriculum was praised by the Korean Prime Minister.
During the talks with Governor of Gyeongsangbuk-du Province, Lee Cheol Woo in Andong, the Provincial Government agreed to offer many benefits for education and higher education, agriculture, fisheries, women and rural development in Sri Lanka. They also discussed the potential for launching investment projects too.
The agreements were reached on providing more smart classrooms for schools, information technology equipment for vocational training institutes for school leavers who do not enrol for higher education, increasing opportunities for university entrance, increasing scholarship opportunities and providing more employment opportunities in Korea for Sri Lankans.
Korean philanthropy
Premier Gunawardena discussed with the Governor about possible investments in health, construction sectors, new technology for fisheries sector, providing consultancy on post-harvest damage mitigation, direct and indirect provision for women empowerment activities.
Lee Cheol Woo, Governor of Gyeongsangbuk-du, recalled his visit to Sri Lanka last year to sign and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between leading Korean philanthropic institution, the Saemaul Foundation which is based in his province.
Saemaul Undong (SU), the New Village Movement (or “SU movement,” as it is often referred to), was a government-oriented Community-Driven Development (CDD) program pursued during the 1970s in the Republic of Korea.
When Ambassador of Republic of Korea, Ms Miyon Lee called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena to discuss follow up actions on the decisions taken at the discussions held during the Prime Minister’s visit to Korea last week, she said Korea will also send doctors and medical teams for short term medical practices at government hospitals and to share their expertise with Sri Lankan doctors. Ambassador Miyon Lee said that her country would work on few new development projects in Sri Lanka in addition to early completion of the ongoing projects.
She said three projects on water treatment, sanitation, sewage disposal systems and dry zone agriculture have been implemented. Korea will also undertake a floating solar panel instalment on Chandrika Wewa in Ambilipitiya in Rathnapura district as a pilot project in renewable energy. She said that further renewable energy projects could be launched after completion of the pilot project.
