Imparting vocational skills: remedy for unemployment

EDUCATION: Every year, not less than 350,000 children throughout Sri Lanka seek admission to Grade I in the State and private school system. Every parent wants to give a good start to his or her child in this quest for knowledge.

Once in the system, through 13 years of schooling, children reach another milestone in their life - entry to the university, the seat of higher learning.

The G.C.E. Advanced Level examination must be one of the toughest hurdles children go through in their lifetime. Unfortunately, success at this hurdle does not guarantee any child a place in any of the State-run 13 universities.

Opportunities are limited. About 15,000 out of the original cohort of 350,000 find admission to some government university in Sri Lanka. That is just a little over 4 per cent.

What can the rest do? Or more appropriately what happens to the rest? This is where a non-university tertiary education system should take care of them. In popular parlance, the technical and vocational education and training system must take care of those children who do not find a place in any of the State-run universities.

Unfortunately, successive governments have given this most important sector step motherly treatment, either by putting it under a lethargic minister or breaking the sector and distributing institutions under many ministries.

In the early eighties, some 10 or 12 ministries had some sort of vocational training institution under them and there was such a chaos because there was absolutely no co-ordination.

Thankfully, President Rajapaksa, a former Vocational Training Minister himself, brought all vocational and technical education and training institutions under one umbrella.

He never had all these institutions under his ministry, and he had to make the best out of what was put under his charge. Today, is the Ministry of Vocational and Technical Training in an ideal setting with all the relevant entities at its command, performing up to expectations? Our assessment is that its performance could be far better with a little effort.

Undoubtedly, the Ministry of Vocational and Technical Training is as important as the Ministry of Education. While the Ministry of Education is charged with the sacred responsibility of moulding our children into responsible citizens, the Ministry of Vocational and Technical Training is mandated to make our young people employable and set them up in life.

The latter therefore must set its vision to equip every single child that drops out of school before G.C.E ‘A’ Level or fails to gain admission to a university after ‘A’ Level, with multiple skills that will enable him or her to find gainful employment.

Looking at numbers, nearly 96 per cent of the school population should be catered to by the vocational and technical training sector. Ironically, any minister in charge of this sector could be a potential leader.

When President Rajapaksa was the Minister of Labour and Vocational Training he set up vocational training centres in all parts of the country to capture the “hearts and minds” of the young people through innovative training schemes. No other minister seems to have capitalised on this treasure trove.

From as far back as the late 1940s, we have had all sorts of aid packages, both grants and massive loans, but to date this sector remains a sick giant not delivering as it should. An ADB report published in 1999 says, “Access to education and training is a major determinant of young people’s future capacity to participate and flourish in society.

Economic self-reliance is increasingly dependent on gaining vocational skills relevant to the industrial and service employment market. For this reason, there is strong social demand for vocational training in Sri Lanka, with demand outstripping supply.”

We always talk about catering to the demand in the industry and therefore the concept of demand driven training. We have always been in a happy situation where the demand exceeded the supply of skilled persons. Then how come we have had high rates of unemployment among young persons? The answer is simple.

There are jobs and skills in demand, but we don’t have sufficient people with such skills. There are many unemployed seeking jobs but they don’t have the skills that are in demand, and they remain unemployed. In other words, our training system may be training thousands, but majority are unemployable. The market needs different skills. There is a system failure, no doubt!

We can go on talking about the ills of the system until cows come home. But that is of no use. We need to find out how the vocational and technical training system could cater to the needs of the labour market and provide such skills in demand to the young people who cannot find admission to the universities because it is so competitive.

Our string of Technical colleges and the hundreds of vocational training institutes must concentrate on the Skills In Demand. The Ministry of Vocational and Technical Training under whose purview many institutions’ function should allocate responsibilities to each of these numerous institutions and ensure that they deliver the targets that are set for them.

It is no secret that there is duplication of functions, inefficient allocation of resources, outdated teaching and training methodologies as well as totally supply driven training due to the lack of understanding of the labour market and its behaviour. The last, supply driven training, is the biggest malady in the system.

What can be done to make this system viable and address the needs of those 96 per cent who are not able to enter a university? Firstly, the ministry must through a quick survey and a meaningful dialogue with the employers, find out the skills that are in current demand as well as ones that will be in the future.

The many in-house research capabilities available in the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission (TVEC), National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA), and excellent data bases of the numerous Chambers of Commerce and Industry could provide demand data. In other words, such sources could tell the ministry what skills need to be provided to young people who come to their training schools. This is the starting point.

The next step is to gear all the training institutes to provide the skills in demand. This is the hardest part of the operation.

The training syllabi, training standards, skills levels all will have to be harmonized to provide the students with the required skills. The instructors, equipment, testing and certification all are essential ingredients of a training system, and of course, all these must be state of-the-art.

Another important aspect is the hands-on-training opportunities available to the trainees. This is not just acquisition of knowledge, but practicing of skills that can be demonstrated with ease when in an actual job situation.

This column will not labour to go through all the essentials of a first class training system. It’s just the essentials that have been highlighted. An important consideration should be the dynamic nature of the labour market, and how a training system should keep pace with it.

Government training systems, by and large, are quite ignorant of the rapid developments that take place in the industry and the services sector and the requisite changes in the labour markets.

It is essential therefore, that the State training system must be unshackled from recruiting procedures, long delays in procurement and outdated procedures to become dynamic and responding to the needs of the market. The ministry should adopt a private sector approach but use its prerogatives to make youth totally empowered through skills training.

Sri Lanka with a 40 per cent youth population, a high literacy rate of over 90 per cent and less industrialisation than desirable, must provide globally marketable vocational skills.

Emerging global labour markets must be thoroughly studied and our institutes geared accordingly. English and Computer skills are a sine qua non if our youth are to find lucrative employment outside the country.

Even for plum local jobs, these are essential skills. Most of the skilled jobs available outside the country would require ability to work with modern computer aided machines and therefore exposure to these machineries during training and apprenticeship is essential.

Whilst higher education is laudable, we must also examine why our graduates are unemployable.

That cannot happen to the vocationally and technically trained persons. Also, these skilled categories must have a sound theoretical background so that they could, if they wish, pursue higher studies and obtain degree level qualifications.

We therefore need to establish a technological university that will provide avenues to those with certain skills to acquire degrees. Otherwise, frustration can set in and highly trained skilled categories will be demotivated.

Sri Lanka’s future lies in its youth acquiring marketable vocational skills and becoming global citizens. If we fail to understand the needs of ever growing numbers of young people and cater to them, it will not be long before the bomb explodes!

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

-Abraham Lincoln

The Reformist