Abstract:
Universities are predominantly engaged in two activities - Teaching and Research. Teaching is
defined as disseminating of knowledge and research is defined as generating knowledge. Both
activities are equally important. There is a lot of criticism from several quarters on the passive
role played by the Universities in Sri Lanka with regard to teaching and research. The private
sector which provides most of the job opportunities for the graduates who pass out from the
university are not satisfied with their quality. The primary objective of the university apart from
teaching is to carry out research. But the national universities are not satisfied with their research
contribution. There are several criticisms leveled at the graduates recently produced by the national
universities. The critics’ question about the application of skills and the evaluation of skills of the
graduates. Others argue that their English proficiency is low and their lack of computer literacy.
The criticisms made by these groups are still valid with regard to the graduates in the Arts stream.
Today it seems that there is a kind of threat or competition to the National Education System
(NES). Here is an alternative educational system developed by the private sector from primary
education to basic degree and postgraduate education. The huge demand and the profitability
in the education sector may be strengthened further from such a development. The criticism on
national university education may have got some backing support to increase the demand of the
private sector opportunities. The criticism against the university education has been taken into
consideration by the interested authorities. In finding solutions one can identify two problems
namely lack of proficiency of English and lack of computer literacy. Generally, it can be argued
that making graduands acquainted with skills to match the outside demand is the solution for this
problem. Universities are not bound to generate a work force for the companies whether they are
public or private. Universities make men/women to serve the nation with analytical knowledge. In
this research, this category of group is named as Conventional School (CS). In this scenario, it is
very important to understand clearly the problem at first and then arrive at solutions appropriately
since it is tightly connected with the NES. We have to consider whether group one or two or both
criticisms are correct. Which group MS or CS has made close solutions to reality? These are the
problems discussed in this study.
