"The number of students who go for foreign studies keep increasing by the day regardless of whether this trend suits us or not."
Foreign students go abroad because parents find that there are not tertiary education opportunities in Sri Lanka that gives their children a chance in a competitive world.
Many students who enter the local universities agitate for tax free government jobs and will be burden on the people throughout their lifetimes.
Around 120,000 students pass the G.C.E A/L’s examination every year but only 20,000 students enter universities.
"Though some students qualify for university due to the lack of universities in the island some get lost without knowing what to do," he said.
"It is easy for a person to say that the government is bound to establish new universities as a solution to this problem."
Encouraging of private sector initiatives is a good way to expand higher education in the country.
Establishing of private universities or fee paying higher educations institutes however is strongly opposed by leftist political parties.
The debate has continued for decades as education is a very sensitive topic.
"People may tend to think that this country's university system has produced many intelligent and enlightened persons who have national and international knowledge," Gunawardena said.
"But they don’t know that these people can't practice what they have learnt. The island's law doesn’t allow this," he said.
"They can't even have their own companies here."
Establishing a university is a very costly task with construction alone costing a government about 2 billion rupees per university.
"In 2003 to provide fertilizer subsidy for all the farmers it cost only 2 billion rupees," said Gunawardena.
"To build a small medium university like that also it costs around the same amount."
"In order to build the universities and to pay the salaries and for administrative tasks it's going to cost a lot and these amounts will be added to government expenses."
In 2008 Sri Lanka spent 26 billion rupees on fertilizer subsidies.
Meanwhile the World Bank said in a report that Sri Lanka spends much less on education that either India or knowledge economies like Malaysia.
The Association of Accounting Technicians of Sri Lanka is a Professional Accountancy body, established in 1987.
About 35,000 students are enrolled in the program.
The minister says when AAT was set up, there was a huge protest against it from some political elements.
"Decades ago when the AAT was going to be established in the island many were against it," Gunewardena said.
Professional education institutes like the Association of Accounting Technicians however have been filling a void in Sri Lanka's higher education sector.
