Where are our graduates heading?

The persisting high rates of unemployment among university graduates is a social issue that Sri Lanka has experienced over the last several decades states Prof. S.T. Hettige, Professor of Sociology in the University of Colombo.

He further states that over the years, the demand for university education has been increasing and accordingly the university system has also been expanded in leap and bounds. This has, naturally, resulted in absorbing large number of students into the university system as well as a rapid rise in the number of university graduates that university system produces annually.

However, most of the graduates find it increasingly difficult to secure employment and remain unemployed for extended periods leading to frustration and agitation. This situation, in turn, has become a political issue.

Though a viable solution has not yet been found to arrest this negative trend, the successive governments have absorbed the graduates into the government sector and provided them with employment in a plethora of public institutions.

The issue in this particular instance is that the public sector in Sri Lanka has been expanding in a grossly unsustainable manner incurring heavy public expenditure and exerting even inflationary pressure on the economy.

In other words, Sri Lanka has a bloated public sector despite the fact that large scale privatization took place since the introduction of free market economy in 1977 and the private sector is considered to be the engine of economic growth.

In fact, over the last twenty years, a large number of state enterprises have been completely privatized or managed by the private sector. However, the rapid growth in the private sector has not led to a contraction of the public sector. On the contrary, public sector has also been expanding over the years.

In the long run, the recruitment of graduates to public sector will not be a solution as it can not expand indefinitely. Another factor that inhibits continuous recruitment of graduates to public sector is the changes brought about in the recruitment policy in certain areas in the public sector.

For instance, a large number of teacher training colleges have been established in diverse parts of the island. The training colleges recruit and train youth for the profession of teaching and the students passing out from these colleges will fill most of the vacancies in the education sector.

In the health sector, recruitments are being done on the basis of professional qualifications in almost all the categories of employees.

For instance, nurses are trained in the School of Nursing and other categories of employees. There are also other institutions in the public sector recruiting persons on the basis of professional and technical qualifications.

Given this situation, it is increasingly clear that public service could no longer recruit as a large number of people as it used to in the past on the basis paper qualifications such as university degrees. This is in a way counterproductive as the government is compelled, somehow, to recruit university graduates to public sector jobs as graduate unemployment become an increasingly pressing political issue.

It seems that university graduates have nowhere to go other than the public sector for employment. This situation is in total contrast to the widespread belief that private sector should play a predominant role in the economy creating wealth and employment and absorb labour both in skilled and unskilled categories. It should be the private sector that should have been substantially expanded.

However, in Sri Lanka private sector has not been expanding at a reasonable phase due to prevailing economic and security situation. As the private sector is not absorbing people with educational qualifications, government is compelled to recruit university graduates.

Since most of the schools cannot provide necessary education in the professionally oriented areas such as natural sciences, accounting, ITC, majority of A/L students are concentrated in Liberal Arts subjects and would eventually study the same subjects in the University.

Those who obtain their education qualifications following Arts programs can not compete with the professionally oriented persons. For instance when private sector recruits persons they generally recruit more professionally oriented graduates. They recruit people with management, accounting or law background often leaving out arts graduates in the process.

The other disadvantage that most of the today’s graduates have is that they do not posses language skills up to the standards expected of them by prospective employers in the private sector. Because of this fact, they often cannot find employment in the private sector.

Although one may argue that the graduates should be equipped with professional skills at the university, this idea cannot be put into practice as there is no consensus over the issue. On the other hand, universities are not equipped to provide these additional skills. For instance, university courses are still traditional and not geared towards any kind of professional orientation. As a result the undergraduates leave the universities with the same kind of university training as did universities provide several decades ago.

The question as to where the graduates may go is one that cannot be answered in simple terms. At the end of the day, it is, by and largely, determined by whether the economy will expand rapidly or not.

If the economy grows at a rapid phase creating new wealth and thereby creating more and more employment both in public and private sectors, it will be easier for students to find employment.

On the other hand, even faced with bleak employment prospects, university graduates cannot migrate to other countries as they lack the professional skills and communication ability.

Local graduates are virtually a lost generation considering their inability to go back to the villages most of them came from as village economy does not produce the kind of employment they look for.

These graduates who come from rural backgrounds cannot fit themselves into the white collar employment created by service and industrial sectors in urban centres as the graduates do not possess necessary skills to compete with persons with an English education who possess these required skills such as language proficiency demanded by local and international conglomerates.

It has become fashionable today to blame the universities for the prevailing high rate of unemployment among graduates.

Universities no doubt have to take its share of the blame. Yet, we need to look at graduate unemployment in terms of its root causes. In this regard, the serious inequities within the general education system and its inability to equip school leavers with the necessary communication and other skills should be recognized as the main contributory factors.

It is also important to note that we have failed to create challenging opportunities for graduates in the state sector in order to make graduates useful for society. There are many areas in the public sector that can be creatively opened up for our graduates.

With an intensive training in the relevant fields, they can be usefully deployed in such areas as local government institutions as physical planners, community development officers, social workers, local level projects planners. They can also be employed to address the problems of children, the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill.

Disaster mitigation at community level is another area for graduates with relevant training. On the other hand, the lack of future prospects has not only frustrated graduates but also demoralized undergraduates with serious adverse consequences.