Sri Lanka offers concessions to attract top foreign universities

The government is offering free land and tax concessions to encourage top ranking foreign universities to set up branches in the country.

The government announced that it is taking measures to attract higher education institutions ranked among the top 1,000 in the world to Sri Lanka.

The Ministry of Higher Education is currently holding discussions with 23 such institutions and 15 of them have shown a positive response, the Sri Lankan government media unit said yesterday.

The government says it will give tax holidays under the Board of Investment law and free land, provided, that 20 percent students are admitted free and the government gets a stake in the venture.

The foreign universities can either lease or buy land and those that set up colleges outside the capital Colombo such as Jaffna, Galle and Kandy will get more generous tax holidays, the government said.

Australia’s Monash University, China’s Beijing State University, India’s Bangalore-based Manifai Medical College and the London School of Fashion are some of the institutions currently in discussions with the Ministry.

The government plans set up a quality assurance and accreditation council to regulate foreign affiliated higher education institutes that are already established in the country.  The Higher Education Ministry said currently measures are underway to amend the University Grants Commission which oversees Sri Lanka’s state universities and licences new.

Sri Lanka’s highly competitive national examinations only allow few students to enter the government universities and students who can afford the tuition of foreign universities leave the country taking the foreign exchange with them.

The government’s measure to liaise with major universities overseas to set up private universities in Sri Lanka is aimed at retaining those students and curb the foreign exchange outflow. - ColomboPage