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| Sunday, 4 September 2005 |
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Skills development program in construction industry launched The National Council for Economic Development (NCED) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) launched a skills development program in the construction industry in Beliatta, Sammanturai and Batticaloa last week. Three more projects of this nature are scheduled to be launched in Galle, Vavuniya and Trincomalee in the coming weeks. Sherman Gunatillake of NCED, also the National Project Director of this project said that lack of professionally trained skills is a common national issue, which cuts across all the industry verticals of the economy. He said that "Although the development sectors in the country have many issues to resolve, all those issues can be summarised in to four key macro issues. They are Access to Finance, Access to Modern Technology, Access to Markets and Lack of Professionally Trained Skills. Gunatillake said that the NCED has largely addressed the first three-macro issues of the country together with its 22 National Clusters, in establishing an SME Bank with a Rs.5 billion capital base to address the access to finance issue, implementing "Dahasdiriya" the incentive scheme of Rs. 1 billion for exporters to modernise their facilities with modern technology and getting GSP+ status for the country's exporters to access the EU markets duty free. He said that the country should now address its lack of professionally trained skills in many sectors sooner than later. "Our health sector needs trained nurses, leisure sector need internationally certified cooks, stewards and guides, export sector needs world-class designers, technicians and craftsmen and the construction industry needs professionally trained masons, carpenters, plumbers and electricians. Today the country feels the need of the construction sector skills much more than before with the tsunami destruction. "In fact 1,000km from the North to the South were destroyed including roads, railways, telecommunication, agriculture and fisheries livelihoods, 40,000 people were killed, around 120,000 houses destroyed, displacing one million people. Reconstructing a destruction of this magnitude is a mammoth task and it is beyond the capacity of the country". Although the government together with the international communities mobilise financial resources, material and technology for reconstruction, the lack of skilled labour in the construction industry continues to be the bottleneck. Gunatillake said that the skills development program directed by the NCED together with its development partners UNDP and JICA, will certainly add value to the construction industry and it also works as a community empowerment tool in poverty alleviation in the rural economy. The selected trainees will be given a three months well designed training, international standard comprehensive tool kit and a certification from City & Guilds of London. The trainees are also paid a substantial daily allowance during the
training period and their employments is guaranteed by the chambers in the
respective districts. |
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