More foreign students, scholarships in pursuit of hub status

By Dinesh De Alwis. Sri Lanka’s Higher Education Ministry has increased the quota of international students admitted to universities and is offering additional scholarships to foreign students in its aim of becoming a higher education hub in Asia. But the moves have met with resistance amid fears that the number of places for local students will be reduced. The foreign student quota was recently increased from just 0.5% to 5% of the student intake at local universities. The ministry said it hoped that around 1,000-4,000 fee-paying foreign students would be admitted in the course of the next three years – many of them from China, although the majority would be from other South Asian countries. Read more...