UNIVERSITY OF MORATUWA SRI LANKA THE BIRTH OF A UNIVERSITY 50 th Anniversary Publication UNIVERSITY OF MORATUWA SRI LANKA THE BIRTH OF A UNIVERSITY Published by The members of the pioneer engineering batch who entered in 1966 Pioneer Engineering Batch- University of Moratuwa First published in Sri Lanka in 2016 By the Association of Pioneer Engineers of University of Moratuwa This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted by the laws of Sri Lanka. No part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system , recorded or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher ISBN EDITORIAL BOARD Jayasiri Karunanayake Preman Fernando Remy Jayasekere Printed by The Print Shop 45/94-1/1, Nawala Road, Narahenpita, Colombo 05, Sri Lanka Tel : +94 112368969 Mob : +94 777 488118 / +94 767 811861 Email : [email protected] Web : www.theprintshop.lk This book is dedicated to All the citizens of Sri Lanka whose contributions enabled all of us to re-ceive education, up to the end of university, free of charge. We have no education debt to pay off—thanks to you And To all those staff and students who will keep the flame we lit 50 years ago, burning undiminished Editor Remy Jayasekere 1. Contents 2. Foreword 3. The birth and the early years - Remy Jayasekere 4. How we lit the flame - Preman Fernando 5. A tribute to our lecturers 6. Some reflections on the early formative stages of the University of Moratuwa Prof K.K.Y.W. Perera, Chancellor 7. University of Moratuwa - Forging ahead Prof Ananda Jayawardane, Vice Chancellor 8. One pioneer’s story - Prof Upali Kuruppu - Former Vice Chancellor 9. University of Moratuwa - History Prof Sam Karunaratne - Former Vice Chancellor 10. Memories - Prof G.T.F. De Silva - Former Vice Chancellor 11. Fifty years in engineering, blending with UOM Professor Rohan Lucas 12. An outsider’s view - Mr. M.R. Prelis 13. Tribute to Dr. L.H. Sumanadasa 14. Tribute to Alwis Aiya 15. Milestones - UOM 16. Chancellors and Vice Chancellors 17. A 10 million Rupee gift to the university 18. The pioneers - students who were admitted to CCT in 1966 19. Where are they now - achievements of the pioneers 20. Acknowledgements 1 Foreword The University of Moratuwa (UoM) is a leading University in Sri Lanka. Its website calls it “a lead- ing technological University in the region”. It also states “The UoM is undisputedly the best Univer- sity in Sri Lanka today”. A global ranking of Universities in 2009 has ranked the UoM as the best University in Sri Lanka and the eleventh best University in the South Asian region”. It has also won many impressive international awards and continues to do so. The University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka was established as an independent University with its present corporate name, in 1978. It was not a new University created on a green field site. It was created by the conversion of the Katubedda campus of the University of Sri Lanka which had operated on the site at Katubedda since the 15th February 1972. Technical education at the fifty acre Katubedda site began in 1960 with the establishment of the Insti- tute of Practical Technology (IPT). The IPT offered technician level courses only. In 1966 the Ceylon College of Technology (CCT) was established on the same site. The CCT offered a five year Diploma in Technology, which was equivalent to a degree in engineering. The first group of students of the CCT to do the five year Diploma in Technology course was recruited in 1966 and they passed their final examinations in October 1971. By then the conversion of the CCT to be the Katubedda Campus of the University of Sri Lanka was pending. In 1972, after this conversion took place, the students recruited to the CCT in 1966 were awarded the BSc Engineering degree. Just like many other Universities in the world, the UoM has evolved over a period of time, going through several name changes. The function of a University is to educate people and award them qualifications at degree level. The group of students recruited to the CCT in 1966 were the first students to be awarded a degree after studying at the Katubedda campus. This was the start of univer- sity education at the campus and that was when the foundations of the University of Moratuwa were laid. This is the story of the University from its humble beginnings in 1966. When these celebrations were planned, it was going to be the golden jubilee celebrations of the group of students that entered in 1966. However, since the birth of the University coincided with this, the celebrations have been expanded to accommodate the golden jubilee of the University as well. Since one person will not be able to provide all the information for a book like this, the Editorial Board decided to invite the key players at the commencement as well as those who were involved in the development of the university to contribute articles to this publication. As a result, you will see articles from several former Vice Chancellors and the current Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of the University included in this publication. It was also decided to consult graduates of several periods during the last 50 years, so that their stories could be included in this book. We also considered the balance in the book on too much or too little detail. Considering that this is the first book being written on the 50 year history of the university, we decided to err on the side of too much detail rather than too little, because much of the detail that will be presented here has not been recorded elsewhere. Therefore, we will record some details, even if they were not of general interest, for the sake of preserving them for posterity. As several people have contributed to this publi- cation, some repetition was expected and we decided to publish the articles unedited in spite of the repetition. 2 THE BIRTH AND THE EARLY YEARS The day a University was born I still remember clearly, that day in October 1966, when the 70 of us met for the first time. We were all young men, except for one girl, all dressed in white, wearing ties and some even sporting white jackets. The girl, Miss Sabarathna Iyer was dressed in a beautiful sari. My chemistry teacher in school had told me that it was good to wear a jacket for the interview and offered me his. Therefore, I was one of the few wearing one. We were from different parts of Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was known then), and had attended different schools. What all of us had in common was that we had sat the General Certificate of Education (Advanced Level) exam in December 1965 and received a letter asking us to come for an interview if we were interested in joining the newly established Ceylon College of Technology (CCT) at Katubedda, Moratuwa, about 15km south of Colombo. The College would offer us a Diploma in Technology which, the letter stated, was equivalent to a degree. It was a five year sandwich course with a year of in plant training in the third year. All of us were eligible to enter the university at Peradeniya or Colombo to study for a degree in Physical science. Out of those who qualified for physical science, the 70 of us had scored the highest marks and that is why we were being offered entry to the CCT. This is how the system worked at that time. The 150 students with the highest marks at the Advanced level exam went to the university at Peradeniya to do a degree in engineering, the next 70 went to the CCT to do the Diploma in Technology and the rest went to do a degree in physical science at university. All of us, mostly 19 year olds were confronted with making a major decision about our future careers. Are we going to take up an unknown course from an unknown College to do engineering or go to an established university to do a degree in science? We were not sure whether the Diploma we were going to get would be recognised by the government and the mercantile sector. All of us had a third alternative in repeating the Advanced Level Exam and trying for admission to a degree in engineering at Peradeniya. Ceylon College of Technology, we learnt, had no buildings of its own. Therefore until the new buildings were ready, the College was to be housed in the existing buildings of the Institute of Practical Technology (IPT) at Katubedda. The IPT had its own Principal, Mr. T.O.P Fernando, courses, staff and students and had an excellent reputation for producing technician level personnel through their Junior Technical Officer (JTO) course. We also learnt that the CCT had a staff of 2, namely Mr. L.H. Sumanadasa, Director, who was a veteran in technical education in Sri Lanka and his peon (office assistant) Mr A.K. Alwis who later became our dear friend and “honorary advisor” to the first group of students – that is us. A tribute to Alwis Aiya appears later in this book 3 Ceylon College of Technology was being established with funds provided by UNESCO and Mr Meuller was their resident representative engaged in setting up of the college. Professor Meuller as we used to call him was a charming man. All expatriate staff, at that time, called themselves Professor. We did not have much to do with him but judging by the results he achieved he must have been very efficient.