Fremhevet

Ayubowan

Welcome to our blog, where we will be sharing our experiences and finding from our field course in Sri Lanka. We are a group of students who study development studies at the Univeristy of Agder in Norway. As a part of our degree, we have to travel to a developing country and research the challenges they face and how they are being improved by various actors and organizations. Our field topic for this year is Sri Lanka’s socio-economic development since independence in 1948. To get an insight into this topic we will visit different organizations, both governmental and non—governemental, have lectures from University of Ruhuna, University of Jaffna, Univeristy of Peradeniya and visit various important cultural sites for Sri Lanka`s, so we can understand the country. By the end of this course we will conduct field work in Hambantota, where we will be staying with local families and further research each of the subtopics. 

If you look at the meny above on the blog, you will see that we have divided it into different topics: economy and politics, health and education and social and cultural affairs. Our travel group has been divided in to three groups that each will focus on a particular side of Sri Lanka`s development. For every visit we make to an organization, lecture or a cultural site, the group will post relevant information in each category. On our home page we will write general information on each visit, and if you want to know more about for example the economic side, you can just click on the category economy and politics above and you will get more detailed information. We tried to do it a bit like a dairy, and at the frontpage we will each day post a short description from our day – what we have done and the name of organizations and the places we have visited. For more information, please click on the topics. Hope everyone who reads our blog learn a lot about Sri Lanka.

Best regards 🙂

26.01.2019

Today we had half day off. First in the morning we went on a safari. The jeeps picked us up at 5am. At the safari we saw heaps of birds, buffaloes and other animals. It was great fun.

Later in the day we looked at some «white elephants». First, we want to define what a white elephant project is. A white elephant project is a building project that has been funded by loans and are too expensive to use, they become a huge debt burden. The first project we visited was the Harbor in Hambantota which was built by the Chinese, and is also now been leased by the Chinese, so this harbor is no longer Sri Lankan territory, we were not even allowed to enter the premises.  The next project we visited was the Rajapaksa International airport. It was absurd seeing this huge top modern airport without any real activity. After this we went on to visit the Cricket stadium which is also a top modern and huge project that isn’t fulfilling its potential. We went to the airport and to a cricket stadium.

This is the cricket stadium
This is the airport.

25.01.2019

We went to the university of Ruhuna. Here is some information about the university.

University of Ruhuna has more than one campus. Their main campus, which is the one we visited, is located on the outskirts of the city Matara. They also have a campus which is located in the city Galle. Currently they have ten different faculties at the university, the same amount as the biggest university in Sri Lanka, the University of Peradeniya. They have faculties for Agriculture, Engineering, Fisheries and Marine Sciences & Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences, Management and Finance, Medicine, Science, Graduate studies , Technology and Allied Health Sciences. When the university was founded in 1978 they only had three faculties. The university currently has about 11.000 students and has 2000 people working as staff.

This is the view at the university.
A lot of art works at the university

24.01.2019

We had free time until lunch today. Most of us enjoyed the beach and a swim with turtles and fish.

After lunch we visited free trade zone. We were so lucky to visit two garments factories.

We were really grateful that our coordinator, Ajith, had the contacts to arrange a trip to the free trade zone in Koggala on the southern coast. A Free Trade Zone (FTZ) or export processing zone (EPZ) is a area of a country where some normal trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas are eliminated and bureaucratic requirements are lower in hopes of attracting new business and foreign investments. To promote economic development in Sri Lanka, the Free trade zones were introduced in the late 1970s. The promises of low or non-existent taxes where set up to attract foreign investments to these specially designated manufacturing areas. Free Trade Zones (FTZs) or Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are a key aspect of export orientated development strategy, as promoted by the IMF and World Bank, which is seen as central to the industrialization or “liberalization” of the economy of developing countries.

Here is from inside the factory.

22.01.2019

This morning we went to the university of Peradeniga. It was a really nice university with 11 facilities. We had a lecture about the colonial time in Sri Lanka and how it is today. At the university we had lunch from the school cafeteria.

This is the cafeteria
This is a building at the university.