AS IT expands southward to Mindanao, the University is set to move to South Asia as the Archdiocese of Colombo in Sri Lanka has asked the Philippine Province of the Dominican Order to put up a Catholic University there.
Fr. Rector Tamerlane Lana, O.P., is set to announce the Sri Lanka expansion when he delivers his annual report to the University in August.
“Unlike the Mindanao expansion project which is a UST initiative, this is a request from the Dominican Order to its premier university,” said Graduate School Dean Dr. Lilian Sison, head of the committee in charge of the project.
According to Sison, UST hopes to strengthen the evangelization process in South Asia helping to improve the qualityof the tertiary education in Sri Lanka and providing “a milieu for interfaith dialogue” since the country has a diverse mix of religious orientations that has caused strife in the past.
“About 70 per cent (of the population) are Buddhists, 15 per cent are Hindi, seven per cent are Moslems, and eight per cent are Christians,” Sison explained.
Eight percent of the population translates to about 1.5 million Christians in the country—a “sizable number of Christians,” she added.
In the 1970s, there were disputes between Roman Catholics and Buddhists. This year, the anti-conversion act, a controversial bill pushed by some Buddhists and Hindis seeking to restrict Christian prozelytization, is gaining support in Sri Lanka’s Parliament while violent clashes between Buddhists and Christians are mounting, according to Human Rights Without Frontiers, an international advocacy group.
Moreover, Sri Lanka still has internal conflicts, which are still unresolved, particularly with the insurgent group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Amid many security concerns, Sison is still optimistic of the expansion into Sri Lanka.
She said the new University would only need an initial 100 to 150 students from about 46,000 eligible college students, who are not receiving tertiary education in Sri Lanka, to jumpstart the project.
If approved, the new campus will occupy a five-hectare teacher’s training center in a Christian community in Colombo, the administrative capital, Sison said. However, she said only Information Technology courses, with English as the medium of instruction, would be initially offered.
If the project pushes through, Sison said UST would be the first private university in Sri Lanka to offer full-degree courses, as the 13 other universities are government-funded.
“The initial costs will range from about P10 to P15 million but the University will be self-sufficient (in the future) since it will look to local hires (to cut costs),” Sison said. “The way we are planning it, it must sustain itself. It should not be a burden (to UST).”
Having been to Sri Lanka, Sison described its people’s lifestyle as “simple.”
Sison’s committee, composed of former UST Treasurer, Fr. Roberto Pinto, O.P. and former assistant dean of the College of Commerce professor Jose Ireneo, hopes to complete its feasibility study by August.
Meanwhile, the expansion project in Laguna is still “indefinite,” according to Fr. Melchor Saria, O.P., one of the leaders of the expansion project.
He said businessman Lucio Tan had granted a 1.5-km passage to the UST lot through his property in Laguna, but more discussions are needed to finalize plans of the project.
Meanwhile, UST Mindanao project head Dr. Ernesto Gonzales said no concrete decisions would be made about the General Santos project since it is still being studied even after the approval of the Board of Trustees. With reports from www.peaceinsrilanka.org and www.hrwf.net
