Sri Lanka has gone through many upheavals in its recent past. There existed a period when the state universities were closed for very long periods due to reasons beyond the control of the university authorities. It was during these tumultuous days that our Managing Director Dr Gamini Wickramsinghe approached the then Minister of Education Mr Lalith Athulathmudali, a scholar from Oxford University,
UK, with the aim of bringing British internal degree programmes to Sri Lanka.After much thought and having discussed the idea with his cabinet colleagues the green light was given for the conduct of internal British degree programmes in Sri Lanka. Informatics Institute of Computer Studies (IICS) was the pioneer in offering internal degree programmes in Sri Lanka. Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) was a very large and diverse institution offering a wide range of courses and research opportunities which varied from city centre to semi rural. With over 30,000 students, MMU was the largest non-federal university in the UK offering over 400 courses. Its stature and the fact that its courses contained a large portion of practical experience and providing strong vocational links with business, industry and the professions made MMU the ideal choice for Sri Lanka. A very tedious and intricate validation process followed and IICS was inaugurated at a very solemn and colourful ceremony attended by many distinguished dignitaries. Mr Lalith Athulathmudali, Mr Dinesh Gunawardena, at present the Minister of Urban Development, the Vice-Chancellor of MMU Ms Sandra Burslem, Head of the Department of Computing Mr Steve Oakey, the first Institute Director Mr Peter Hutt, Chairman Deshabandu Wickramasinghe and Dr Gamini Wickramasinghe the Managing Director of Informatics (Pvt) Ltd. IICS commenced its first student intake in Sep 1990 and for the first time Sri Lanka was to experience a sandwich degree programme of 4 years’ duration with the 3rd year as an industrial placement year where students were placed in industry for 48 weeks. The first student body consisted of 22 students, and the original faculty of 6 was expanded to 12 for the second year. Over the years the quality of learning and teaching maintained at IIT saw student numbers swell in numbers/. The fact that over 1800 students have graduated from IIT within this short span bears testimony to its maturity and popularity as an institute of higher education of high repute.
