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SL requires 22K researchers, has only 5K

19 Sep 2022

By Buddhika Samaraweera   Claiming that there should be 22,000 researchers considering the population of the country, but that the number of researchers in the country is only about 5,000, Minister of Education Dr. Susil Premajayantha said that it is therefore very important to carry out educational reforms to suit the modern world. Speaking to the media, he said that many people, including the majority of MPs, accept the need for educational reforms, and that a process to bring about such reforms will be implemented from 1 January 2023. He also said that it will take around 10 years to complete the implementation of the reforms. “Capacity building and an attitude change of the students should be carried out. It is a problem to evaluate the entire education acquired over 11-13 years through only an examination. Especially in developed countries, it is the practice to merge the marks of a continuous evaluation system in the classroom and examinations to make a final evaluation. Absence of such a system means that students with better memory are able to score higher, and children with ability and competence are deprived of that opportunity,” said Premajayantha. Due to the lack of such a system, he said that there is a lack of researchers in the country. He said that compared to the population of 24.5 million in Sri Lanka, there should be 22,000 researchers, but there are only 5,000 researchers in the country at present. He noted that only about 2,000 out of them are conducting research that is of practical use, while all the rest are conducting only theoretical research. “Children in other countries are trained to apply the knowledge they get from their preschool age. However, among the 40,000 graduates who are enrolled in universities annually under the current education system, apart from the students who are studying a few subjects,l such as medicine, engineering, valuation, etc., all others become unemployed graduates. To stop their agitation, the Government has to recruit them in bulk. That's why it's so important to make educational reforms fit for the modern world," he added. He also mentioned that since health and wellness are intertwined with sports, the Government hopes to allocate more space for sports in the implementation of educational reforms. He mentioned that the aim of these reforms is to produce talented athletes in the general education system and to bring about a change in attitude and produce a healthy generation of children.  


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