ICT, English vital to develop human capital

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

Sri Lanka’s human capital should be brought to the high level of human capital in other countries to maintain competitiveness and attain economic advancement, Sri Lanka Business Development Centre’s Managing Director, Charitha Ratwatte said.

He was speaking at a seminar held at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute recently. He focused on findings and policy recommendations of a study commissioned by the Pathfinder Foundation to identify policy actions required to unleash the potential of the private sector.

He said it is essential to improve human capital through ICT and English literacy. He said that modern economies are known as ‘knowledge economies’ which have depended on the advancement of human capital on a continuous basis for the uplift of the concerned economies in a fiercely competitive global economic environment.

“With the fast development of science and technology, the old knowledge becomes obsolete quickly and new knowledge has to be acquired regularly”, he said.

Two gateways for acquiring new knowledge at a cheaper cost have been the mastery in both information and communication technology(ICT)and English language.

“But unfortunately Sri Lanka’s ICT literacy and competency in English have been very low”, he said.

Ratwatte said a current policy of continuous improvement of ICT literacy of all Sri Lankans must be accelerated on a priority basis to eliminate the present digital divide.

The differences in IT literacy among countries is known as ‘digital divide’. In the case of Sri Lanka such a digital divide exists within the country between towns and villages and between the old and the young.

“Therefore it is necessary to eliminate the digital divide to improve the quality of the country’s human capital resources,” he said.

“With new advanced learning techniques, this can be corrected on a wide scale within a short period of time, provided necessary resources are allocated on a priority basis,” he said.

“English should be taught as a working language by using advanced teaching methods by using ICT and all government and private sector employees should be given facilities to acquire ICT literacy as quickly as possible,” Ratwatte said.