Products Of Free Education

A government technical training institute that has some 1,100 students in its role would have had to charge each student Rs. 150,000 annually if it were to survive without getting a Treasury grant.
Currently they are provided free tuition, in addition to getting a monthly stipend of Rs. 1,000; Gamini S. Manchanayake, Director/Principal Ceylon-German Technical Training Institute (C.G.T.T.I.) told The Sunday Leader.
They are indigent students, with several of them coming from the rural areas of the country, they are too poor to pay fees, he said.
“We are sustained by a monthly grant of Rs. nine million provided by the Treasury for our recurrent expenditure,” Manchanayake said. Additionally the Government gave us a new building free of charge which cost them Rs. 80 million recently, he added.
“However the contribution that my students make to the economy is that they are all employable, with some of them even securing employment abroad,” he said.
C.G.T.T.I. provides three and four year courses covering areas such as motor vehicle technology, welding and tool machinery.
“In fact 11 of my students following the welding course have already found employment placements in the Middle-East even before completing their final year,” Manchanayake said.
C.G.T.T.I. also provides fee levying courses to others, in addition to earning revenues from their workshops by taking on commercial contracts. Some of the shorter paying courses may be as short as four days.  Seventy eight workers employed in Chevron affiliated garages and service stations enrolled for such a course last week.Manchanayake, a former C.T.B. engineer said that when he was serving as depot manager Kuliyapitiya there was a carpenter employed by him who used to work overtime so that he could find enough money to fend for his family of five children.
One of his sons who followed a motor-mechanical course in C.G.T.T.I. got a job in Australia, and now has taken his father and a few of his siblings too “down under,” said Manchanayake.
They are now well off, without having to struggle to make ends meet, he said.