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| Thursday, 22 April 2004 |
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Unmet challenges in Lanka's human resources development by Chandani Jayatilleke Though successive governments together with the private sector in this country have made continuous efforts to promote technical and tertiary education and thereby promote employment opportunities among the youth, satisfactory results are yet to be harnessed.
As far as the technical and tertiary education sector is concerned, this is one area where a country's human talent can be used to its fullest. Such education will provide job oriented training and skills development. If the training is done in a proper, prompt manner, this will definitely be a vibrant employment-generation area. Therefore, it is important to broad base reforms in the technical and vocational training sectors and create an intelligent workforce in the industrial sector. Every year, thousands of students leave technical and vocational training schools armed with diplomas and other certificates, yet only a handful of students out of this lot would find meaningful employment. This is a sad situation which is similar to the issue of unemployable graduates in this country. Private sector representatives say that the Government should understand the HR requirements of the private sector and implement projects and programs that would meet these requirements. Although consecutive governments have looked into the issue in many different ways, a genuine assessment to determine industry needs, is yet to be done. The private sector suggests educational reforms and a national policy on vocational training, if the country is to raise the standards of vocational education. Firstly, we need to do a thorough assessment; identify priority areas such as tea, garments etc.,, and implement educational programs accordingly," say Chamber leaders. No government has undertaken to do a comprehensive study to assess the HR requirements of the private sector and the educational needs of the country so far, they say. Chambers have been consistently requesting governments to restructure and reform the entire education system in the country, so that the country's younger generation will bloom into a bright future, with many employment opportunities awaiting them. Restructuring the technical and vocational institutions and bringing them under one umbrella is one way to address this issue, says President, National Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka (NCCSL), Asoka de Z. Gunasekera. He says this is one area when a lot of innovations should be introduced. "We need to go ahead with the rapidly changing global economies. To meet such goals, our education system should get a major boost. The successive governments should learn to continue with reforms implemented by the previous government and achieve the goals, considering it a national interest. Party politics should be shed when it comes to an issue like education reforms," he says. The chambers got involved in many projects to turn unemployable graduates into employable ones over the last few years, through programs such as 'Tharuna Aruna'. Up to now, 'Tharuna Aruna' has trained 32,000 graduates. President, Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI), Rangith Hettiarachchi says that the country's target should not only be the local industrial sector, but also the labour markets in the neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Middle East. "We have too many vocational training institutions that would promise to train the labour force. But, these institutions have failed to perform to the full potential due to various reasons. We believe that the organisations should come under one umbrella and train the human talent to suit different industrial segments," he says. Citing an example from India he said, Bangalore is exporting human talent, specially to the US market, which is a major foreign exchange earner. "Why can't we set such goals?." Referring to current local standards in vocational training, he said: "We create intelligence in Sri Lanka. But, we don't create the necessary intelligence. This is a real setback." Ceylon Chamber of Commerce is one of the organisations which has put much emphasis on training HR and tertiary education in the country, through a commission dedicated to this purpose. Through the Commission, the Chamber started a mentoring project for graduates from all the universities in the country, and gave exposure in the private sector companies for two years. The Chamber also conducts round table discussions where the Chamber officials and private sector representatives discuss various matters in relation to technical and vocational training in the country. They also organised a national education conference in 2002, and highlighted several points, pertaining to improving the country's future human talent. Ceylon Chamber is currently working on a project proposal to be launched in 2005 with ADB assistance - which is called HR Investment Project. "This is aimed at investing talent in people through various programs, including international exposure. The project will be implemented as part of a budget proposal," a Chamber spokesman said. Industry representatives also said that lack of a proper salary structure for trainers in this field is another difficulty in the development of tertiary education in Sri Lanka. "The Government can't attract better, skilful trainers to work in these institutions, the perks are not so attractive," they said. Restructuring and introducing reforms in the vocational and tertiary education system in the country is indeed a major challenge faced by the new Government. "We believe that this Government will identify this need and swiftly implement education reforms enabling the country to produce skilful human talent in the near future," Chamber representatives said. |
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