A feminine click to breakthrough dominance

Nandanee Ekanayake is the Secretary of the Public Service Commission, Central Province:

Ruwini Jayawardana

Women of the new era are strong-willed and self-assured. One has only to encounter a lady in a dutiful status to realise that they are better globe-trotters than their menfolk and are more business-minded.

Nandanee Ekanayake is an embodiment of this tradition except that she has ventured into an exclusive male domain. Ekanayake is the Secretary of the Public Service Commission, Central Province. She has been

 employed in the sector for 28 years and it had been a long climb up the ladder of success for her.

“I was born in Kandy and was educated in several schools. My father was a book-keeper and my mother was a nurse. I have two sisters who are both government teachers. Though I did art subjects for my Advanced Level, I was chosen for a commerce degree at the University of Peradeniya,” she noted.

From University to the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, Ekanayake then to Anuradhapura as a district land officer. Then she was chosen as the Assistant Secretary for the North Central Provincial Council under the local Government Housing and Construction Ministry.

In February 1991 she was elected to the Central Provincial Council, Kandy, as an additional Government Agent and worked there for five years before joining the Public Service Commission.

“It is a tradition in the Kandy region that the Government Agent should be a male. That was the reason I could not occupy that post,” she said.

“This job is very demanding. The Public Service Commission is responsible for all public servants’ recruitments, promotions, conformations, inter-provincial transfers, retirements and disciplinary matters. To keep track on those sectors are our responsibility. We are in charge of around 43,000 to 45,000 employees in the Province.”

Ekanayake said they were selected for the post after an exam which was held all over the island. Mostly it is the graduates who take part in this examination.

“This occupation is time consuming. Therefore some may hesitate to join this field. However, I have not encountered any problems so far in my career. I managed the dual role as an employee and a mother and give priority to my responsibilities connected to both sectors equally,” she said adding that all her family members have been very helpful to her during this period.

She is a proud mother of two. Her daughter is employed in the private sector and her son is an electrical engineer. The next step is for Ekanayake to achieve the status of a Cabinet Secretary. But she has no great plan to pursue that.

“If I am selected for the post, I would accept it, knowing the responsibilities that I am required to perform. However, it is rarely that one gets a chance to achieve that status,” she continued.

“Our system is constructed in such a way that women are not permitted to go to the top of the field. They usually get stuck in the middle level.

I believe that the reason for this is that these jobs involves a lot of field work despite the time or place. For example, a Cabinet Secretary has to observe events connected to the whole country and not limit his or her work to handling files. This requires a lot of decision making and policy making and to find out whether the objectives of the ministry are achieved,” said Ekanayake.

Sometimes women in this field have to work twice as hard as men to prove that they can handle the responsibilities related to the job. All these problems are the results of cultural barriers. Such problems do not occur in developed countries where both men and women are side by side in all sorts of occupations.

They give priority to qualifications and experience. More than 50 percent of the Sri Lankan population are women and most of those in the educated crowd are women,” she observed.

“We have all the resources in our country. If these barriers are overcome there will be a vast development in the society as well as the economy.”