Need for a Master Plan

The historical role of Dharmaraja College has been unorthodox, and the school has played a decisive role at difficult and crucial junctures in the history of the Sri Lankan education system. It is the opinion of the Rajans Professional Collective that Dharmaraja College and the Sri Lankan education system as a whole is currently facing a number of challenges. Therefore, unless we intervene now, Dharmaraja College would become just another school and lose its position as a thought and change leader.

With the increasing politicisation and commodification of the education system, the erosion of the values in society in general and ignorance of norms, the Rajans community has keenly felt the need for a Master Plan for Dharmaraja College. This need has been discussed for the last 20 years but no pragmatic initiative was launched despite one or two false starts.

The need for a master plan was highlighted during the last few years due to a number of factors. Cuts in state financial allocations, red-tape and bureaucratic barriers for carrying out development activities and unplanned changes to staff, all indicated the need for a master plan to streamline and strategize the school’s activities.

Within this context the Rajans Professional Collective began an organized dialogue to develop a Master Plan for the College in 2016 with the objective of first identifying the key challenges facing the school and then to provide long term solutions for identified issues, and finally, to prepare Dharmaraja College to face the new cultural and technological changes in the country and to position the school as a leader for the next century. The significant support provided by the Principal and the staff and also the President of the OBU and his team in the Old Boys’ Union was instrumental in developing this Master Plan. We believe that with the support of the Principal, academic staff and the OBU this Master Plan will provide the road map to maintain Dharmaraja College as one of the leading education providers in the country and to take the college to even greater heights than what it has achieved in the past.