Jobs for graduates

The Government has acted prudently in addressing the issue of unemployed graduates without allowing the matter to get out of hand. According to our lead story yesterday, the Government has decided to provide employment to 17,000 unemployed graduates. They are to be given placements as teachers of fine arts and also employed as Janabala Lekams, coordinating and overseeing development plans at village level - the latter a concept under the Mahinda Chintana.

These graduates had been agitating for some time now staging various protests and even death fasts trying to draw the attention of the Government to their plight. And as is the norm various political parties were attempting to exploit the situation to obtain mileage at a crucial time when elections are around the corner. Now that the Government had addressed the matter satisfactorily the question to be asked is how much longer is it going to be the provider of employment to the armies of graduates passing out each year.

This no doubt is going to be a recurring problem. What is it going to do with the next batch of graduates? Are we going to witness similar protests and agitations by graduates demanding Government jobs at every turn. This is an issue which the Government would do well to address seriously so that it would not have to take upon the role of a job agency for graduates. A system has to be devised to enable graduates secure employment without depending on the State.

Whatever has happened to the much advertised program of State collaboration with the private sector in the matter of providing jobs to graduates? Is this scheme still in existence? If so why are there still unemployed graduates clamouring for Government jobs? Of course the State cannot expect the private sector to take upon this burden to any degree. For starters, the mandarins in the corporate sector are hard nosed businessmen who will not pick up the tab for unproductive labour.

We say this because going by the type of employment these graduates have been offered so far under all Governments they just do not fit into the scheme of things in the private sector. For another it is moot that private sector employers would be inclined to hire graduates from the local University system given their proneness to agitation.

One cannot also imagine the private sector firms employing misfits in terms of employability just to please the Government. It is interesting to ascertain how many graduates have been recruited to the private sector under the private sector oriented job training programs over the years.

Of course it is unfair to expect these entrepreneurs who are driven by profit to have deadwood in their employees just to please the Government. They expect value for money and this sadly our graduates are not equipped to provide. This is where the Government has to play a much bigger role in providing the avenues to enable these graduates to fit into the employment market.

We see the Government has realised this requirement. The setting up the first College of ICT education in Sri Lanka would now enable youth to be IT savvy and be in the market for private sector demands. Similarly the University curricula too should undergo a radical change so that the graduates would not have to depend on the Government for State sector jobs.

This way this segment of our educated youth would be invested with the sense of dignity knowing that their skills are in demand. Today most of these graduates end up in unproductive jobs in Government offices passing the time in redundancy while their intellectual capacities are geared for better deeds but utilised to their true potential. This is waste of their future not to mention the drain on the their coffers to afford them free education.

The Government therefore should take it upon itself the task of creating graduates who are capable of meeting the modern day demands of the labour market particularly at a time when it is in need of all the skills and expertise it could command for the gigantic post-war development tasks ahead. It should also reassess its graduate training programs in collaboration with the private sector to turn out skilled products who would fit into any working milieu. The private sector after all has received enough and more incentives from the Government from time to time. It is a small price to pay to accommodate a few hundred graduates into its fold.