The Institute of Surveying and Mapping, located at Diyatalawa in the Badulla district will be made an accredited University, Minister of Information & Communications Technology, Higher Education, Technology & Innovations Dr. Bandula Gunawardena said.The Minister was speaking during an inspection tour to the Institute of Surveying and Mapping in the company of Lands and Land Development Minister S.B. Dissanayake yesterday, a ministry communiqué said.

The Minister addressing the staff and the students at the institute said that following the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the country’s President, the government has given special emphasis on developing human resources.“There are two main areas of focus in the President’s manifesto and one of them is human resources development. Therefore, this government has already taken several decisions to speedily implement them to ensure employability and a prosperous future for those students who have passed the GCE Advanced Level exam but has failed to gain entry to state Universities,” Minister Dr.Gunawardena said.

The Minister said that there were around 181,000 students who passed the Advanced Level last year and only about 30,000 will gain university entry.While noting that the government’s intention was to provide quality university education opportunities to a maximum number of students, it is therefore imperative that institutions like the Institute of Surveying and Mapping should be upgraded to university status.

He said the institute had reasonable physical resources to be upgraded to university status. The minister also said the institute will be used to conduct other part time courses when it is upgraded to University status. State minister S.B.Dissanayake also spoke.