Seeing a gold mine in admitting advanced level qualified commerce students to university He undertook to speak to Vice Chancellor Walpola Rahula and set the ball rolling.” Professor gave us a patient hearing and said that he was waiting for such an opportunity. But within minutes, with his usual broad smile, he kept us all at ease. Many years later, Siri Udawatte recalls his meeting with Dharma: “We were at first scared to talk to him because of his coarse voice and our disappointments with other universities. Thus, when Siri Udawatte met Dharma for support, he foresaw a valuable opportunity for Vidyodaya University to expand its management education programmes with school leavers as the main throughput.
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He too with his experience in management studies in US universities was anxious to experiment any new thing to upgrade the country’s education system.ĭharma giving a patient ear to agitating students He was ever ready to modernise Vidyodaya University.Īt that time, Dharma was the Head of the Department of Business and Public Administration. Vidyodaya University: Pioneer in business and public administration studiesīy the time the student team led by Siri Udawatte was getting ready for the AL examination to be held in 1965, the Vice Chancellor of Vidyodaya University happened to be Professor Rev Walpola Rahula, who had personal exposure to modern university education in both France and USA. Hence, those who were admitted to the two degree programmes were adult students and not those fresh from schools. But admission to these two degree programmes was not on the basis of the GCE (AL) Examination but on work experience in a government or a private institution. Vidyalankara University was not interested in introducing a degree programme in commerce.Īt that time, Vidyodaya University had started two special degree programmes, one in business administration and the other in public administration. They were told by the university administration that the University was not in a position to change its selection criteria. The student team led by Siri Udawatte made representations to the University of Ceylon without success.