Sri Lanka needs to come out of the middle income trap and in this regard science and technology could play a vital part, a senior government minister said at an inventors forum held in Colombo recently. “We will introduce STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) reforms to the education system where new thinking could be infused. We will set up an innovation centre within the next two years,” Minister of Science, Technology and Research Susil Premjayantha said.
“Singapore became number one in the STEM education ratio whereas Vietnam is in the 16th position. We need to go for STEM education reforms to be globally competitive,” he said.
Under UNESCO’s vision there is a norm that research and development should be at least one percent of the GDP, but sadly in Sri Lanka it is 0.11 percent of the GDP, he said.
Sri Lanka could not any longer depend on foreign remittances and taxation. “We need to go for the next level of technological advancement. Inventors play a key role in this.
They should not limit themselves to the local market, but should aim at the global market.
“There will be new jobs created in the next 30 years in the technological field. The country needs to gear up to face the challenges of this change. We have world renowned scientists, but they have no platform to work locally. Our aim is to invite them to the country and derive the advantages of their knowledge, the minister stressed.