ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has too many agencies overseeing post-school education and also needs to reassess its NVQ qualification, the country’s president told a summit on developing human capital.
“We have too many agencies, too many departments, and Ministries running these agencies. I want to have one single agency for this area, which will look after post-school education and all the training centres,” President Ranil Wickremesinghe said.
Wickremesinghe estimated there to be 700-800 such agencies in the country, and said the government should merge them into about 300 vocational colleges, which “can then be updated and modernized.”
“That’s what we have to do. Replace the technical colleges of varying standards with advanced colleges of technology and management and be able to introduce the associate degree in technical and vocational subjects,” he told the Sri Lanka Human Capital Summit 2024 held yesterday (18) at Temple Trees.
The summit, attended by former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and former president of the Maldives and industry experts, focused on the theme ‘Unlocking Sri Lanka’s Economic Potential by Building a Future-Ready Workforce’.
Sri Lanka has faced a large scale migration of workers since its socioeconomic crisis two years ago. This has hit sectors like ICT in particular.
An estimated 400,000 Sri Lankans left the country in 2022. “The number that left in 2023 has been similar, a little less.
“They had to look after their children’s education and pay their debts. The money wasn’t sufficient, so they decided to leave. We fixed our salaries when the exchange rate was LKR 185 to a dollar and our prices when the rate was LKR 300 to a dollar. So, can you imagine how a middle-class executive can survive?
“Numbers will drop, but we can stem this by about 2026/2027 if we undertake the fundamental economic reforms that are necessary.
“Many of the people who left this country were not graduates. They are vocationally and technically qualified.
“We have to look at the vocational and technical sector.
“To begin with, we need to reassess our NVQ qualification. I think we must re-look at the NVQ qualification and bring it in line with the Australian one, which is accepted internationally and makes provision for the associate degree.”
Wickremesinghe said other Asian countries that developed relied on a good system of vocational and technical education, higher education, and capital formation.
“For India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to develop, we have to improve our human capital formation. The whole BIMSTEC region must come together.”
Wickremesinghe said most people in the country felt that there has to be a fundamental change in the economy. “When you do that, we will realize which sectors require people.”
There was scope for IT and related industries and to train people for automation, the president said.
“The private sector, big and small, has to expand. There is no other way. Within this framework, yes, we must look at our human capital formation. Without financial capital, you can’t develop your human capital.
“What we need now is assistance to develop this system. We are so used to asking for aid projects, which mainly consist of buildings and some equipment. We need to move away from that. I will not allow anyone to get money for putting up buildings. The foreign assistance we require, as the central authority will have to decide, will be to strengthen and modernize the system.
One of the countries Sri Lanka will reach out to is Australia, Wickremesinghe said. “We should seek assistance from these countries to build up our education system. Already, there is a project paper, which I think the Australian High Commission produced somewhere in 2021 or 2022, on educational opportunities.
Deakin University, Edith Cowan University and Sydney Technology University have opened up universities in the island. “So you can see universities coming in.”
Sri Lanka can “be a platform for human capital formation and do that in this whole region.” (Colombo/Jul19/2024)