The government spends over Rs. 45,000 million every year to maintain state universities, United Students’ Front (USF) Senior Vice President Isuru Perera said.
He was addressing the media at ‘Sirikotha’ UNP Headquarters yesterday.
He said it was not practical to increase the local university intake to include every student.
"Then the government would have to sacrifice the maintenance of other essential services," he said.
“Private education institutions are essential to achieve sustainable development.
Private universities will ease the local students’ educational needs and it will attract foreign students to the country.
It will attract more foreign currencies and that will appreciate value of the Sri Lankan rupee,” Perera said. He said a low interest student loan scheme should be introduced to fund students' higher studies.
USF Spokesperson Chiranthaka Palugaswewa said the SAITM is rather a production of Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime.
He said the government had identified the need of standardized private education institutes as a solution to eliminate the disparities between the percentage of advanced level passed students and that of the university intake.