'Tharuna Aruna' grooming graduates for private sector jobs

Hiran H. Senewiratne

GRADUATE TRAINING: The Government will provide training and development for 2,000 university graduates for private sector employment needs under the 'Tharuna Aruna' programme. This is done under the World Bank funding programme by the Ministry of Skills Development and Public Enterprises, sources said.

Under the 'Tharuna Aruna' programme all registered graduates will be provided with training in a private sector office environment, its Chairman Ranjith Hettiarachchi said.

He said that all registered graduates for this programme will be given a three month training on different subjects including human resources, marketing and information technology which will be an added value to their degree.

The objective of this programme is to make local graduates to be private sector oriented with the growth of the private sector in the country. During the training programme they will be given an allowance of Rs. 5,000 for three months, since the private sector is the engine of growth.

To provide these training programmes the Government has set up 37 centres islandwide known as 'Yovun Diriya' centres. With the increase of number of centres in the country, the Government will also increase the number of registrations for these skill development programmes, Hettiarachchi said.

Several leading private sector organisations will be involved in the project. They will train the graduates in a variety of fields apart from imparting knowledge in English and computing.

They will also be given funds to follow professional courses in their chosen disciplines. Since many private sector organisations are now willing to be absorbed into their staff and the first batch of trained graduates will complete their programme before the end of September this year.

More than 15,000 graduates pass out from local universities for a year.

These graduates are not conditioned enough to get employment in private sector organisations.