Arts education gets big boost with MoU signing |20 July 2017

Staff and students from the Seychelles Institute of Art and Design (SIAD) are set to benefit from a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the said institute an a visual arts university in Sri Lanka.

The MoU, which will remain in effect for five years, was signed in Sri Lanka on July 4 by the director of SIAD Christine Payet and the vice-chancellor of the University of Visual & Performing Arts in Colombo, Professor Ariyarathne Kaluarachchi.

The activities or programmes to be performed under this MoU entail exchange of staff and undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic information and materials, artefacts between the two institutions, participation in arts residency programmes and workshops and other agreed academic exchange and cooperation programmes, including conducting short courses for capacity building.

The initial discussions took place in February 2017 at the high commission of Sri Lanka in Seychelles, presided over by High Commissioner Tikiri Herath Gunathilake and Prof. Kaluarachchi, Ms Chetty and Geethanjali Jayasena, a Sri Lankan Lecturer currently working at the Seychelles Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture (SIAH), Anse à la Mouche.

Professor Kaluarachchi was on a special invitation in the country by the Sri Lankan Association of Seychelles to celebrate Sri Lanka’s 69th Independence Day.