Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera Memorial Oration on 18 September

Friday, 12 September 2014 01:16 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera Memorial Oration will be held on 18 September at 4:00 p.m. at the Senate Room of the University of Peradeniya. The oration will be delivered by Geneva-based Global Migration Policy Associates’ Vice President Dr. Piyasiri Wickramasekara, on the topic “International Migration and Development: Myths and Facts”. Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera was the Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics and Political Science of the then University of Ceylon. He succeeded Prof. Das Gupta to become the second occupant of the Chair (and the first Sri Lankan) in the department in 1961. He also served as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Peradeniya (1963-1969) and later on as Secretary to the Ministry of Planning (1970-1977) under Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. He was a respected academic and public servant. A large number of his students have made outstanding contributions to both academic and public life in Sri Lanka and overseas. Dr. Piyasiri Wickramasekara, a distinguished student of Prof. Gunasekera, is an internationally-recognized expert in development, migration and employment issues. He served on the academic staff of the then Department of Economics, Commerce and Statistics of the University of Peradeniya from 1968-1984. Thereafter he joined the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a Senior Specialist and worked for 25 years in New Delhi, Bangkok and Geneva. He lastly served as a Senior Migration Specialist in the ILO’s International Migration Program in Geneva until he retired in 2010. During his career at ILO, he contributed extensively to the formulation of ILO’s thinking on international labour migration issues, in the promotion of a rights-based approach to labour migration and in the production of several flagship reports and monographs. He is currently Vice President of Global Migration Policy Associates in Geneva, a multi-disciplinary team of migration related experts. Dr. Wickramasekara holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Peradeniya and a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. The oration is organised jointly by the Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Peradeniya and the Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera Memorial Trust Fund. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to [email protected] or 081-2392622.