Abstract:
Technical education plays a major role in the field of higher education in Sri Lanka. The
expansion of the technical education sector was slow during the first half of the 20th
century due to the limited demand for technical skills generated in the colonial economy.
However, since the independence this sector has received a high priority. Technical
education can be regarded as one of the avenues to get foreign technology transferred
into Sri Lanka through foreign grants for technical corporation. Under technical
corporation grants, generally, foreign countries come into agreements to provide
physical facilities, assistance to develop training programmes, training materials, training
for local staff, etc for an agreed time period. Though the agreed grant period of some of
the technical corporation programmes now elapsed, training programmes that had
initially developed are still running. The evidence reveals that the increased demand for
the technical education programmes has been mainly due to the fact that the universities
have not been able to meet the demand for job-oriented technical education.
The aim of the paper is to investigate training programmes that were initiated through
technical corporation grants to assess appropriateness and effectiveness of the
technology transferred from these programmes to Sri Lanka. For the study, an analytical
model was developed and equivalent technical training programmes, where agreed
grant period elapsed were selected. Data was collected through questionnaires and
interviews. The investigation revealed that in all the technical training programmes, both
donors and recipients mainly concerned with buildings, vehicles, machinery, etc and less
concerned with the training of trainers, technology upgrading channels, arrangement of
institute management procedures, etc. Overall, the findings led to conclude that
technical training programmes that were initiated through German grants were the most
appropriate and effective.
