Describes and evaluates a project undertaken to reform teacher training in Sri Lanka so that it would be more focused toward community development. Major successes of the program were that it helped educators understand the potential resources available at the village level and encouraged them to stress multi-disciplinary approaches toward…

This report describes a study that surveyed the provision of engineering distance education worldwide and investigated specifically the views of major providers in the United Kingdom (UK). Three countries were selected for indepth investigation: Czech Republic, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. Findings indicated the use of electronic media was growing…

This paper, based on field research and a literature review, examines the beliefs about education as held by people in developing countries. Parents and students in disadvantaged third world areas value education for the sake of learning, not just to improve chances of modern-sector employment. A study in four Mexican rural schools found that when…

This paper examines the notion of reciprocal school-community development in Third World countries. Information on village schools in Sri Lanka and Senegal were gathered from interviews and observation. Tanzania is an example of a country that took radical steps to integrate schools within their respective communities in order to foster rural…

A regional workshop on "The Study of Secondary Education in Asia and the Pacific" was attended by 18 participants from Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Western Samoa. The major objective of the…

This volume contains a series of articles describing the management of education in various countries of the Asian region and discussing a few of the regional problems. Many of these problems are the result of old administrative machinery trying to cope with growth in the size and complexity of education and with a new view of education as a key…

This paper discusses issues related to developments in computer and communication technologies in south Asia. The first section considers the Internet and its impact. Paradigm shifts and globalization are addressed in the second section, including the shifts away from stand alone libraries to library and information networks, ownership to access,…

It is argued that, although Sri Lanka has been able to provide equal access to higher education, this does not represent total equal educational opportunity in relation to students' socioeconomic status. As is typical of developing countries, since employment remains limited, educational achievement does not outweigh antecedent social status. (MSE)

Discusses author's observations of poverty-related problems within rural Sri Lankan schools. Juxtaposes literature on Third World education problems at national, district, school, and individual levels. Concludes high educational expectations in developing world are tightly constrained by poverty, negative attitudes, and weaknesses of systems.…

This report describes the development process of a distance education program in Sri Lanka run by the Institute of Distance Education for nongraduate teachers inservice, and presents results of the program's evaluation. Two teacher education courses--an elementary education course and a combined science/mathematics course--were offered. The…

Multidisciplinary training in social competence is of vital importance for service-oriented workers who have direct linkage with baseline citizens. Extension workers should be aware of the nature and characteristics of social science tools and be able to apply them in their daily activities. The following six competencies have been identified as…

A study compared the visibility and participation of women working in United States television with that of women working in television in other countries. Video tapes of five consecutive evening news broadcasts in 1986 from the United States, Japan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Jamaica were analyzed for such data as the proportion of women anchors,…

The author provides a brief cultural history of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), giving particular attention to the relations between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority and the effects that differing religions, languages, cultures, and educational opportunities have had on that relationship. (IRT)

Efforts made in Sri Lanka to restructure university courses to match the country's employment needs are chronicled, including data on employment level of college graduates in a variety of disciplines. The role of government employment is noted. (MSE)

Describes the status of activities relating to development information in Sri Lanka and the role of the Centre for Development Information. The discussion covers the generation of development information; the infrastructure devised for the collection, organization, and dissemination of information; and resource sharing programs at national,…