300 students who studied in the newly established Engineering and Technology Faculty are graduating alongside with the rest of 3500 students in USJP 47th Convocation to be held on Feb 26-28, 2022.
“We started the degree program in Engineering in 2017 after carefully designed this industry-oriented program in 2016 to satisfy the industry demand with the global standard SLQF7, and globally accepted with Washington Accord, and in focus of [our engineering graduates will be able to] fill the current vacuum for the engineers in the industry.” Said Dr. K M C Konthesingha, Dean of Faculty of Engineering. “Our engineering program is a unique program in Sri Lanka with 150 credit hours offered as a full time 4-year degree in Sri Lanka focusing on Major and Minor degrees in Engineering. Our students can have Major in Civil Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science Engineering with compulsory 130 credit hours and with the rest of 20 elective credit hours they can have Minor in Biomedical Engineering, Telecommunication Engineering, Structural Engineering and Environmental Engineering” added Dr Konthasingha. The Faculty of Engineering in USJP is the 7th Engineering Faculty in Sri Lanka and it is the youngest Engineering Faculty in Sri Lanka with 6 groups of students studying currently. More than 90 graduates who are graduating in this year from the Faculty of Engineering are currently working in both the private and government sector in Sri Lanka.
“Our Faculty of Technology is the first ever Faculty of Technology in Sri Lanka created focusing on creating Technologists for the industry after introducing Technology for Advanced Level in 2013. We were able to cater the students who qualified for university in 2016 from 2013 A/L Technology stream intake. Our faculty is a complete faculty with 75 lectures, 40 complete labs and offering 4-year 120 credit hours bachelor’s degrees in Engineering Technology (Hons), Bio Systems Technology (Hons) and Information and Communication Technology with 6-month industrial training and 6-month research project.” Said Prof (Mrs) A H L Renuka Nilmini, Dean of Faculty of Technology USJP. Currently 300 students are graduating from the Faculty of Technology and the graduates are already in the workforce with the Private and Public sector in the country.
“We are expecting to expand the Technologist availability in the industry by increasing the annual intake to the Faculty of Technology from 300 to 500 students per batch soon. Our graduates have higher demand in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) jobs in the industry” said Professor Sudantha Liyanage, Vice Chancellor of USJP. “No time wasted for a regular timeline in our degree programs due to Covid-19 pandemic at all because of online teaching, and I believe we did splendidly with the remote teaching and student participation increased for the lectures due to our format in online lectures and in-person training and labs. We were able to improve the quality of education and minimize the dropouts due to the online format” added Professor Liyanage.
University of SJP currently has 8 faculties and 2 new faculties- Dental Science and Urban Development are in development to make it to 10 faculties in the near future. USJP is the largest university by the student capacity in Sri Lanka with an annual intake of more than 4000 students. 3800 students are graduating in this 47th convocation including 1500 Technical Graduates. Professor Sudantha Liyanage, Vice Chancellor of USJP, Prof (Mrs) A H L Renuka Nilmini, Dean of Faculty of Technology, and Dr. K M C Konthesingha, Dean of Faculty of Engineering of USJP participated in this press conference.
