Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering – Dr. T. Thiruvaran, Head of the Department of Computer Engineering – Dr. A. Kaneswaran and Dr. B. Ketheesan from Civil and Environmental Engineering visited to the University of South Carolina in USA. Here the team separated into two groups to cover the as many as possible visits. This visit was coordinated by Professor N. Ravichandran and supported by care for education.
The management team of the Faculty of Engineering had a full day visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston USA. This visit was organized on 5th June 2017 and coordinated by Professor K. Chelvakumar and Professor Rohan Abeyaratne. The full team, from the Faculty of Engineering, travelled from Houston to Boston on 4th June. Professor Sam Thiagalingam welcomed the team and the crew stayed in his residence with a brief discussion at the dinner time on 4th June.
The dean and the heads of the departments of the Faculty of Engineering had a full day conference with the professionals on 3rd June 2017. This was conducted in two sections.
The first meeting was conducted from morning till afternoon and it was coordinated by Eng. Ram Praveen and Dr. R. Thevamaran. This was also supported by the care for education at Houston. This discussion was mostly with the professors and industrial engineers. There were members attended to the meeting as well as some of them were attended through video conference arrangement. It was excellent discussion for about six hours, on possible collaborations while uplifting the undergraduate education, where it will result to economic development of the county. The professors agreed to be external supervisor to the undergraduate projects, visiting to the Faculty of Engineering University of Jaffna for their short stay on empowering the students, fine tuning the laboratory setups while giving their inputs to the teaching and learning systems. The discussions were very much impressed and motivated towards empowering the human resources while promising fullest support to the research projects at supervisory levels.
The five member top management team of the Faculty of Engineering visited to the Rice University on 2nd June 2018. This was coordinated by Dr. R. Thevamaran. This visit was also supported by the Care for Education at Houston. It was excellent discussion with the Associate Vice-Provost starting with breakfast. Excellent discussions on overall management, concept of curriculum and focus of this University. The Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK), which is basically function for designing-prototyping and deploying, was very attractive on giving hands on experience for the students. Also helping to take the projects to the commercial level. Further few very expensive higher level research equipment were observed. Especially it was discussed that how they were managed for better utilization to do research and development for the real benefits.
The team of top management of the Faculty of Engineering visited to the University of Texas A&M. This was coordinated by Professor C. Sriskandarajah and the visit was on 1st June 2017. This visit was also supported by the Care for Education at Houston. It was good to know the curriculum is designed to give common (two-three semesters) and (six-five semesters) on specialization and their concept on designing the curriculum for different degree programs. Further how they manage the large students’ population in teaching and learning process. The team spent the whole day till late hours by visiting many laboratories, offices, modern class room setups, students’ canteen and discussion places and other landscaping areas etc.
The top management team including Dean and Head/Nominee visited to the Houston University USA on 31st May 2017. This was organized by the Care for Education operated at Houston. It was excellent meeting with leading professionals at the University of Houston and observing the undergraduate teaching laboratories as well as postgraduate research sections. Further curriculum, concept of academic program, workload of teachers were discussed in detail. It was very good critical discussions on keeping the active learning environment through many teaching methodologies.
The Dean – Professor A. Atputharajah, Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering – Dr. T. Thiruvaran, Head of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies – Dr. A. Anburuvel, Head of the Department of Computer Engineering – Dr. A. Kaneswaran and Nominee from the Head of the Department of Civil Engineering – Dr. B. Ketheesan visited to the USA Universities. This was organized by the Care for Education operated at Houston and California.
The Dean and University Business Linkage coordinator met Dr. Muditha D. Senarath Yapa, Head of the John Keells Research in an event held on the inventors’ day organized by the American Embassy in Colombo Taj Hotel. It was very well motivated speech given by Dr. Muditha and a follow up meeting was scheduled with the dean, UBL coordinator and all heads of the Departments of the Faculty of Engineering University of Jaffna at his research group in the Technology Incubation Center, Nanotechnology & Science Park in Homagama. Ms. Thilina Weerasekera coordinated the meeting. The meeting was held on 29th May 2017.
Four Norwegian students, specialized in electrical engineering degree program, have designed and installed solar project with battery storage in Sri Lanka as green energy program for a week ending on 28th May 2017. This program was chosen as their bachelor’s degree project work. This was done at the Rose Villa Heritage Homes project headed by Mr. Yogavarathan Mahalingasivam. Those students also visited to the University of Moratuwa and University of Jaffna during their visit to Sri Lanka.
The Mathematics, Science, Tamil and English subjects were notified as poorly performed subjects among the most important technical education system. As a result few meetings with the teachers and educational administrators were organized by the Faculty of Engineering staff and students in May 2017. It was an excellent opportunity that the former Director of Education of the Mullaitivu District was very much interested on their education system. For this discussion, we had few meetings at the Faculty of Engineering as well as at Mullaitivu Director of Education Office. The problems identified are almost similar to the problems experienced in Kilinochchi but more shortage of teachers as well as infrastructure facilities too. All members discussed the problems, however it has the pressure on addressing all issues with a comprehensive study. Here proper planning, developing correct strategies and implementation to be done through properly designed action plan.