University of Plymouth invests heavily in offering its Health degrees in Sri Lanka

Colombo, 13th January, 2023: The University of Plymouth, one of the most highly recognised universities in England has been a collaboration with the National School of Business Management – NSBM for over ten years, offering degrees in Business, Computing, Engineering and Science. For the first time, the University of Plymouth is facilitating foreign students to take their degrees in health-related fields abroad. This landmark move is made with a view of educating not only Sri Lankans, the entire region by making Sri Lanka the hub. Accordingly, in September 2022, Plymouth invested in three full three-year BSc Hon. to be offered in Sri Lanka.

Elaborating further, Dr. Poorna Gunasekera, Associate Dean – International of Faculty of Health at the University of Plymouth said: “The University of Plymouth has three faculties and out of them, Health is the largest. The three full three-year BSc Hon. degrees Plymouth has invested in are Nursing, Psychology and Bio Medical Sciences. We are in the process of recruiting students and we want to rapidly expand the numbers.”

He further added: “A delegation of seven of us led by the Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor, the second most important person in the University are here in Sri Lanka for a week. It also includes the three Heads of Schools – Bio Medical Science, Nursing and Psychology, together with the three degrees. Furthermore, the Biological Science degree team is in the process of developing the Nutrition degree as well. This is our way saying that we believe in the dream of Sri Lanka. Irrespective of all the turmoil, we want to invest in Sri Lanka.”

This landmark development will be offering great savings to Sri Lankans who wish to obtain an internationally recognized degree right from their home. Dr. Gunasekera also said: “In the bigger picture, UNESCO, which is the education arm of the United Nations came out with a landmark declaration last year called “Reimaging the future”.  And, in that, they state that in the Article 26 of the Human Rights Law says that education is a basic human right. What they are saying now is education is not just a human right at any particular level, but it should be a human right that quality education must be accessible by everybody across all age groups. So, this is the way of Plymouth significantly buying into that concept and this is our way of doing it. We are recognized as one of the best universities in the world in embedding our students in the local community. And we want to do that here in Sri Lanka too. The students who follow our courses are really embedded within the socio-cultural belief system of this country. And in doing so, we want to uphold the values. Not to actually colonise Sri Lanka, but to celebrate the diversity that is available in Sri Lanka.”

Seated from left to right: Louise Winfield, Associate Professor School of Nursing and Midwifery; Julie Swain, Senior Partnership Manager – University of Plymouth; Dr. Poorna Gunasekera, Associate Dean – International, Faculty of HealthUniversity of Plymouth; and Gail Rees, Head of SchoolBiomedical Sciences    

Poorna Gunasekera, Associate Dean – International, Faculty of HealthUniversity of Plymouth

The delegation from University of Plymouth, led by the Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor, the second most important person in the Universitywith the Vice Chancellor and the Senior Academics at the NSBM Convocation