SP SRI LANKA OCIP DAY 9

The team had breakfast at the hotel as usual and left for CSLEC to finish up the painting at 7.45am.

After having lunch at about 1.30pm, we visited the Vavuniya Branch of Jaffna University. There are different blocks of the University such as the Administration block, IT block, Applied Sciences block and Business block. The distance between the blocks are pretty far apart, ranging from 5km to 10km apart. We learnt that the students usually have to cycle from the admin building to the school blocks in 10 minutes, before the lesson start.

Mr Quah and Mr Nathankumaran, the Rector of Jaffna University (Vavuniya Campus).

The view outside the classroom in the University.

Inside a computer lab in the IT block.

Students there take 'O' levels and proceed to take 'A' levels. Only 10% of 'A' level students can proceed to universities for further education. The other 90% enrol into Technical Education or Advanced Technical Institutions and they can proceed to work thereafter. We had also learnt that even with education, there is still high unemployment rate due to the lack of available jobs. I felt that we are privileged and should appreciate our education as we have access to new equipment and updated software. Yet in Sri Lanka, the students do not have access to latest equipment like us and the classroom environment is not conducive for learning.

The birthday cake for Nuwan!

Nuwan cutting the birthday cake.

The guys carrying Nuwan!

We decided to celebrate Nuwan's birthday today which was a little early seeing as his birthday is on 3rd April and we would not be around as we are heading to Colombo early in the morning. After the tour of Jaffna University, we retired to our hotel and decided to make dinner arrangements. While debating where to go for dinner, we decided to give Nuwan a birthday surprise and so some of us went out to buy a cake while others stayed back at the hotel to rest. We went to dinner at Royal Gardeen to have some Naan and once we were done with dinner, we brought out the cake and sang Nuwan a birthday song. He was not expecting that at all and we could all tell he was very touched by the gesture. He showed his gratitude by feeding each of us a bite of the cake and he said a few words of thanks. He was moved to tears.

We felt today was a positive experience as a whole. We were glad we could make a positive impression on Nuwan as it was his first birthday party in 22 years.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest and to prepare for tomorrow's interaction and presention to the community of CSLEC.

Reflection by Hisham and Hadi.