Background In Sri Lanka, nursing education is moving from a 3-year general nursing certificate to a 4-year university bachelor degree. In this transitional stage, the development of a conceptual framework that uses evidence to underpin undergraduate nursing education is a crucially important step to improve nursing education and nursing service in Sri Lanka. However, there is no evidence to support the contention that existing and proposed undergraduate nursing curricula in Sri Lankan universities are based on a common philosophy or an acceptable needs assessment. Purpose The overall purpose of this study was to develop an evidence-based conceptual framework for undergraduate nursing curricula in Sri Lanka. Method This study has involved conducting critical reviews of literature, two systematic reviews, developing a draft conceptual framework, testing its appropriateness and feasibility with key stakeholders (nursing academics, administrators, clinicians) via focus group discussions in Sri Lanka, and formulating the final conceptual framework for nursing curricula in Sri Lanka. Findings The systematic reviews revealed that the evidence regarding the effectiveness and appropriateness of undergraduate nursing curricula is notably weak and direct transfer of the curriculum model from one country to another is not appropriate without first assessing the cultural context of both countries. The conceptual framework, which was developed using the finding of systematic reviews and literature reviews, consists of widely recognised nursing concepts in international and local contexts. However, some concepts can not be directly applicable because of cultural and economic impediments. Discussion The cultural, social, political and economic contexts of a country have a direct impact on its health and education systems. This study identified several factors that shape the approach to nursing curricula in Sri Lanka. These factors include: Western influence; Sri Lanka’s cultural influence; the current healthcare system and demand for healthcare; nursing systems and regulation; medical dominance; financial support; and Sri Lanka’s education system. All of these factors influence the conceptualisation of nursing and educational strategies needed to effectively and appropriately prepare nurses in Sri Lanka. I propose seven recommendations to support the implementation of the study findings into practice in Sri Lanka. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1317073 / Thesis(Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Population Health and Clinical Practice, 2008

This study is a gendered analysis of natural resource management at the local scale of a poor rural Sri Lankan village in a conservation buffer zone. This village experiences destruction of forests and human elephant conflict. The objective of this study is to gain an in-depth knowledge of residents' use and understandings of environmental resources, and to investigate if gender helps shape these factors. This study relies on a social sustainability conceptual framework. It tracks participation of local women and men in natural resource management, and in conservation within and outside of the Bibile community. Local nongovernmental organizations focus on mitigating human elephant conflict and government policies influence particular farming practices. Unless socially and environmentally sustainable practices are developed, areas within and outside of the protected areas are not sustainable in their current state (Jayewardene 1998). Current interventions are failing to solve this problem in both rural communities and natural ecosystems, demonstrated most clearly by shrinking forest habitats and the frequency of human and elephant deaths (Bandara 2009). By broadening the analysis of natural resource management to examine possible social, economic, and political influences, my research examines how different resource management approaches might be filtered and reflected by variation in local residents' use and understanding of environmental resources. I suggest that gender, household decision-making, and equality are overlooked but potentially important aspects in the perception and implementation of natural resource management.

Abstract not available

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Leipzig, 1999.

The central investigation of the thesis is an exploration of why the US has, historically, done very little in terms of assisting the various Sri Lankan governments in their fight against, what the US Department of State determined as, one of the most deadly terrorist organisations on the planet. The thesis traces the development of the US-Sri Lanka relationship from independence (1948) to present day, identifying trends and motifs in the bi-lateral connection. Once identified, these trends and motifs are used to place the American response to the emerging conflict in a clear historical context. The work makes it clear that there are unambiguous historical indicators in the US-Sri Lanka relationship that help determine the nature of it, and that these indicators become ever more apparent, even dominant, as the war between the Tamil insurgents and the Sri Lankan state intensifies. These historical indicators are then used to frame the impact of the War on Terror on America's orientation towards the conflict. The investigation draws together the historical dynamics that have shaped, and continue to impact upon, the US-Sri Lanka relationship, giving a very definite set of parameters within which the US is prepared to accommodate the Sri Lankan state. Ultimately, the question of whether the War on Terror, prosecuted by the administration of President George W. Bush, marked a 'turning point' in the relationship between America and Sri Lanka is answered. The judgment, clearly supported by a broad range of original and, at times peerless, primary sources, is that the US operates a very restrictive foreign policy with Sri Lanka, and that this policy has done very little in material terms, to assist against the LTTE - despite the Bush administration's War on Terror.

A case study was conducted at the Kaudulla irrigation system in the city zone of Sri Lanka. The principal objective of the study was to perform a comprehensive evaluation of the system in operation with primary focus on identifying major constraints to effective irrigation management through a multi-disciplinary research approach. Inadequate control facilities and neglected maintenance of the channel system were the major problems affecting irrigation management. Other constraints identified were the lack of motivation among management personnel and insufficient funds available for maintenance, which were dependent on constraints external to the system, namely the national economic and political environment. The delicate economic status of a majority of the farmers, grassroot level political environment and the economic vicissitudes of the entire country have resulted in the formation of vicious economic cycles that have contributed to a breakdown in the institutions essential for an engineering system to function effectively. Irrigation management alter:aat:ives were developed on the basis of generating motivational incentives to the management personnel and financial resources to sustain the technical capability of the engineering system to effectively distribute the irrigation water. Techniques for integrating these aspects into new community organizations in addition to existing organizational framework were outlined. These procedures should assist in eliminating the major constraints to effective utilization and management of irrigation water. / Ph. D.

No description available.

It is often claimed that education confers a range of benefits to individuals. From realising their thinking capacities to overcoming class boundaries, the outcomes of education are considered especially beneficial for women. Feminist theorists make a direct and strong link between education and female autonomy. Those who critique this line of thinking point to the numerous societal and structural factors which come into play in preventing education from delivering its promises of a world with greater productivity, equality and freedom. However even these critics concur that higher education does help to overcome the many structural inequalities which affect the everyday lives of women and also men from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This thesis explores the ways in which the sexuality of students, at a Sri Lankan university, is constructed. It looks at the extent to which social factors – be it through personal interactions, established norms or explicit rules – exert control over and determine how individuals can express their sexuality in a setting which is ostensibly liberating and progressive. Based on 15 months of fieldwork at the University of Kelaniya, the findings are used to argue that when it comes to constructing their sexuality students continue to be constrained by a reiteration of social and cultural expectations which are at play in larger society. The onus on women to uphold these expectations is reinforced by other women and the men play a key role in ensuring their maintenance. Hailing predominantly from working-class backgrounds, these young women expect university education to provide them with the ticket out of their workingclass background to better opportunities. Thus they endeavour to maintain, produce and reproduce social norms which will mark them as respectable and chaste women. The potentiality of a better life offered by university education becomes the very thing that constrains women students from using their autonomy to express their independence and sexuality. Based on these findings, it is then argued that since higher education itself is shaped and constrained by factors of nationalism, class and gender, the numerous benefits it offers to women do not always provide them with the autonomy that is needed to overcome the double standards that apply to how sexuality is constructed in most societies. The intersections between gender, class and nationalism dominated the milieu in which this Sri Lankan university is placed and thus it is these factors, rather than education, which determined the ways in which women could construct their sexuality. The aspirations brought on through their university education of a better life, rather than liberating them, further constrained their behaviours. As such these women engaged in a system of surveillance – both of self and the other – which maintained and reproduced notions of respectability and sexual sobriety in their everyday behaviours.

How do people who have participated in extensive violence against the state and members of their community, understand and reflect on their experiences? What meanings do they attach to violence, and how do they go on to reformulate their lives and deal with the consequences of their actions in its aftermath? These are among the key questions that this thesis considers. Anchored in a little-known violent period that took place in southern Sri Lanka in the late 1980s, known locally simply as ‘the Terror’ (Bheeshanaya), this ethnography of political violence analyses the memories and narratives of those who have engaged in violence. It explores how violence is negotiated and lived with in the aftermath and its implications for the self and sociality. As such, this study is concerned with how people mediate and articulate discomforting memories of violence, in a post-terror context of silence and fear, where justice and reconciliation are lacking. Through the accounts of people who have participated in violence, this thesis provides rich insight into the consequences of violence, and further highlights the flawed nature of one-dimensional ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ binaries generally assumed in studies of violence, emphasising instead the ambiguity that marks the experience of violence. This thesis is based on 14 months of fieldwork carried out primarily with former insurgents in southern Sri Lanka. For balance and to maximise representation in what remains deeply contested terrain, their accounts are set against the stories of people who did not directly engage in violence, but whose lives were nevertheless touched by the Terror. This thesis argues that for those who have participated in violence, the mediation of its memory is an on-going ethical exercise. It finds that former insurgents remember, give meaning to, and live with, their violent pasts in ethical terms. Remembering violence is morally tendentious and carries significant implications for the self and sociality in the present. Recreating life after terror involves finding an ethical framework to deal with violence, and entails ongoing efforts to allocate moral responsibility for it. This thesis contends that as much as the violent past is kept alive in the present as an ethical issue, moral accountability for it remains un-reconciled and in a constant state of flux. It shows overall the narratives of former insurgents to be contradictory and convoluted, highlighting the ambivalent nature of memory and lived experience of violence. Moreover, it argues that for those who have participated in violence, life in the aftermath is about finding ways of living with one’s violent past, rather that ‘healing’ or ‘moving on’ from it.

No description available.