'More youth should take to higher education'

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

Students engaged in Sri Lanka's tertiary education is around 5 % and is the lowest in the region and steps should be taken to get more students engaged in tertiary education. Suraj Dewaraja, Chairman Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SASSCOM) said the solution for this is to have more higher education institutions.

Speaking at the inauguration of the EDEX Education Expo he said events of this nature would also help ‘youth’ to find higher education opportunities. “Distant Education is another option”. He said the involvement of youth in the BPO sector is very high in Sri Lanka and the income generated through them is US $ 400 m which makes it one of the top five foreign exchange earners to Sri Lanka.

Dewaraja said that the lack of opportunities for youth for tertiary education has forced them to look for other education options such as CIMA. “This is the reason why Sri Lanka is the second best ‘market’ for CIMA students after UK.

Reshan Devaura, CEO ICTA said that they are now in process of intensifying this campaign to increase IT literary in Sri Lanka. “We are targetting to increase this ‘low’ rate to around 75 % by 2016,” he said.

The 10th Anniversary edition of Sri Lanka's largest education and careers exhibition EDEX Expo 2013 will be held from January 18-20 , 2013 at BMICH and January 25-26 at KCC Kandy marking a decade of continued and unparalleled service to nations youth. Vision of EDEX is to “empower Sri Lankan youth to be globally competitive”.

This year , 330 stalls would be available and over 52,000 is expected to participate.