Taking the risk of changing his career shortly after graduating, a medical doctor turned entrepreneur Darshan Perera found his passion in teaching. As the Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of Colombo Institute of Research and Psychology (CIRP), he kick-started the academic organization when Psychology was barely heard of nor believed to hold opportunities towards success.
Many of those around him doubted his decision and convinced him to progress his career as a medical practitioner, a field they believed would undoubtedly provide a safe and secure future both professionally and financially. However, with parents who held a strong objection and friends who conceived him crazy, Darshan found the only encouragement from his school classmate Suchira Surendranath, the current Chief Executive Officer of Brandix.
Thus with a minimal support system, zero expertise and experience in running a business and lack of financial strength, he decided to give up medicine and begin a higher educational venture. While it was indeed a calculated risk, its depth had never occurred to Darshan back in the day. “I am a fan of “Risk-Return Tradeoff “and a believer of “being authentic and doing it my way” It has worked well for me over the years.”, he states.
Establishing CIRP in 2011, it was first located in De Vos Avenue in a 1500 sq ft rented apartment with one staff member and a handful of A/L students studying Psychology. Having had positive growth for a decade, CIRP is now the leading educational institute for Psychology with a modern city campus of over 30,000 sqft, a hundred local and foreign staff members and nearly 700 students pursuing bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“In an era where education has become a commodity, qualifications are up for sale and universities are turned in to degree mills trying to maintain academic standards, the ethics of education and genuine concern for education is a swim upstream”, Darshan states. Therefore, through a journey full of challenges, ups and downs, he found the love, strength and support extended by his students to be the greatest gift in striving ahead. Despite his doubts and setbacks, Darshan’s passion for psychology and knowledge of appreciative students is what kept him going even in difficult times.
While he believes Sri Lankan students are intelligent and talented with hardworking and quick learning capabilities, he finds the lack of Sri Lanka’s ability to produce employable graduates to be critical. “Whether it is state or private, most higher education establishments end up certifying our youth with various qualifications but without moulding them into efficient and productive professionals”, Darshan renders. “Some who have some exposure due to their privileged family or school backgrounds make it to the top while the vast majority end up in positions neither they nor their employers are happy about”, he went on to state.
CIRP focuses on producing globally employed graduates and empowering students with transferable skills, confidence, the ability to work in a multicultural environment, PR, language skills, and incorporating technology to their fields, thus adhering to professional and ethical standards. Equipping students with such core competencies and having worked very hard to achieve his goal, Darshan proudly informs that his students are employed or engaged in higher education worldwide and are outperforming their colleagues wherever they are. As an academic establishment, he considers that to be the most valuable return of investment.
One of CIRP’s key objectives is to build capacity in psychology in Sri Lanka due to the need for thousands of clinical, counselling and child psychologists. Darshan stresses the importance of having professionals with psychological backgrounds in education, child care, child protection, rehabilitation, etc. “We have contributed significantly to capacity building by producing employable graduates with undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications,” he asserts. More than 90% of CIRP’s past students and staff have attained international standard training, providing them with the knowledge and exposure needed to flourish as individuals.
Apart from teaching and training, CIRP also focuses on stimulating research. “We organize the biggest psychology conference in the region. Known as ICAP Sri Lanka, we have held it every year since 2014”, Darshan continues, “This provides an excellent platform for students, academics and researchers to come together to share knowledge and expertise and network.” Holding down a fortitude in academic excellence amidst the challenges of maintaining higher education, CIRP does not compromise quality for numbers, profits, and popularity. Not only does CIRP own a fort of the academy, but it offers psychological services to allow students to train and provide the need for the community.
Looking back into the past, psychology was often related to working with mentally ill patients. However, in reality, 10-20% of the psychology graduates become clinical psychologists, and more than 80% of them work in various other fields.
“From toy designing to psychological warfare, psychologists are strategists in all fields where human behaviour is an important factor”, declares Darshan. The majority of those who graduate with a psychology degree are known to work in the corporate sector. He gives an insight on the new branches of psychology, stating, “In the future, it will be impossible to find a field that psychology is not involved.”
As the world becomes much more evolved and individualized, future success in any field is bound to depend on better understanding, prediction and influence of human behaviour. This, in turn, would lead psychology to become an essential part of almost any job role in the years to come.
With a vision to become a leading research-oriented institution, CIRP targets increasing the percentage of international students. Currently holding 20% of international students, Darshan aims to raise the population to 50% by 2025. “We have achieved market leadership in psychology education in Sri Lanka, and we are working to make Sri Lanka the regional hub for psychology education. We have the commitment, resources and passion for doing so. If we stay on course, we will be able to get there soon”, he responds.
According to Darshan, if the government can establish a practical and modern regulatory body for private higher education organizations and the leading private, the higher education institutes can get over petty competition and improve the industry and advocate government. He affirmed, “I am sure we can achieve the goal of making Sri Lanka an international hub for higher education.”
Darshan believes in delayed gratification by staying loyal to CIRPs vision and producing psychology graduates on par with the highest standard worldwide. “If we genuinely care about the quality of the service we provide, profit and popularity will follow and will be sustainable”, he recapitulates, “Stay committed to your passion, be authentic. Keep your head down and work hard. You don’t need to tell the world who you are or what you do or respond to criticism. If you do what you do right, everything else will fall into place.”