|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Saturday, 6 March 2004 |
 |
|
 |
News | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
South Asia must utilise human resources for development - Kodituwakku by Anjana Gamage As South Asia has become home to one fifth of the global population, human resources, the most abundant resource in the region could be utilised for its economic development, said the Minister of Human Resources Development, Education and Cultural Affairs Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku. He was speaking at the inaugural meeting of the SAARC Technical Committee on Human Resources Development held at the Colombo Plaza yesterday. "However today it is mostly the low skilled workers who leave for foreign employment. The value of human resources depend on the quality of the workforce. In a global market countries have to be competitive and those countries which posses highly trained competitive manpower will have an edge over its competitors. The dilemma that we are faced with today is while resources have to be provided for the quantitative expansion to ensure access in education at the same time the quality of education has to be improved," he said. According to the Minister, 98 per cent of children who are five years old have attended school. Ninety five per cent complete the primary stage of education and have a literacy rate of 91.8 per cent. These high standard of statistics have been achieved as a result of the free education, he added. He further stated that the Ministry of Education is concentrating on the development of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and English Language Teaching. Culture, sports and youth development are the other key areas that the SAARC technical committee is concentrating on and Sri Lanka has agreed to the establishment of the SAARC Cultural Centre in Kandy, in order to forge and foster cultural links among the countries in the region. Meanwhile discussions are also being conducted at present, to grant concessions to SAARC nationals who visit places of cultural and religious interest, he said. Secretary to the Ministry of Education V. K. Nanayakkara, said that the SAARC Technical Committee meeting was an opportunity to bring together the HRD (Human Resource Development) experts in the region. Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bernard Goonathilake said that South Asian Region is the richest in HRD in comparison with the other regions. According to him the SAARC social charter and the SAARC cultural centre will be focused during the action plan for year 2004. Vallur Rahaman, an HRD expert from Bangladesh also spoke. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
