Courtesy of The Island, 27 November 2012
Professor Quester is the lady in a blouse and Dr. Amal Karunaratne is the elegant gent with silver-hair to our right
The University of Adelaide, one of Australia’s leading research-intensive universities and ranked among the top one per cent worldwide, is for the first time offering a scholarship for a Sri Lankan student to study for a bachelor’s degree. Prof. Pascale Quester, Pro Vice Chancellor (Academic), Adelaide University, addressing a ceremony to announce the Lindsay McWha Accomodation Scholarship, valued at AUD 6,250, to a Sri Lankan student, at the Cinnamon Grand in Colombo on Friday, said that selection would be strictly on merit and it had to be taken in the year for which it was offered and could not be deferred.
“Our student centric approach equips them to face the world of tomorrow. It, also places a lot of emphasis on sporting activities. The campus is right in the city of Adelaide, with a population of 1.2 million people and with a reputation as the cleanest town in the country,” she said adding that among the university’s alumni were the Singaporean and Australian Prime Ministers.
The scholarship was tenable only for accommodation at the Urbanest apartments. The awardee will need to pay for the remaining accommodation cost of AUD 6,250 in 2013. Funded by Urbanest, the scholarship has been named in honour of Lindsay McWha in recognition of her patronage and ten-year involvement with the University of Adelaide Volunteers Committee, she noted.
Quester said the Adelaide University was a member of the Group of Eight (Go8), a coalition of leading Australian campuses that were research intensive and dedicated to delivering a world class education. There were more than 26,000 students at the university with 30 per cent of them being foreigners from more than 90 countries including Sri Lanka. The staff comprised members from 27 different nationalities, she observed.
Quester said that the University of Adelaide was a leader in the fields of information technology and communications, agriculture, wine and food, biological, environmental, social and physical and health sciences.
Dr. Amal Karunaratne, an alumni and former lecturer at the Adelaide University said he could not agree more with Quester’s presentation and would recommend that his fellow Sri Lankans also benefit from a good education that he too had the fortune to experience. Sonnya Koppe, the Deputy Australian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka was among the invitees to the launching ceremony.
