SLAQ Diploma in Quality to enhance skills development

The Sri Lanka Association for Quality (SLAQ), a leading professional body promoting quality in all aspects of the society in the South East Asian Region, is focusing in developing a team of quality professionals who could take the Sri Lankan industry forward to meet the growing challenges of ever changing customer needs and other expectations of regulatory bodies.

Quality approaches are now becoming broader with the incorporation of environment, social responsibility and information security management.

At the same time the growing food and energy crisis driving the world for new technology improvement, had given a new dimension to quality management to improve efficiency and reduce waste and costs.

SLAQ surveys show that with the introduction of quality management concepts such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and the related approaches for improvement, the demand for quality managers had increased significantly and these organisations are willing to pay high salaries and the salaries of quality assurance managers had increased by 50% during the past two years.

Current statistics indicate that 53% of those qualifying at the local Advanced Level examination fail to either enter local universities due to heavy competition or to join overseas universities due to financial constraints.

This is a national issue with many school-leavers unable to find employment. At present there is a large number of enquiries reaching the SLAQ to organise this diploma more frequently.

This diploma provides a way out for this sector to further education and be employed as quality professionals.

While those with good advanced level results are selected to participate in the diploma program, others are upgraded through a certificate program which guides them to participate in the diploma course.

One of the serious problems faced by the industry in employing fresh graduates is the lack of practical knowledge in meeting the challenges and as such there is a general reluctance to employ those coming out of the universities. SLAQ had identified this situation and introduced the diploma program as a means to support these graduates to give them a more practical training which backed the theoretical knowledge gained through their university education.

Fresh graduates looking for employment had found this diploma as a key to employment in the private sector which is looking for graduates with practical approaches to fit into their organisational culture.

Those who are already in the industry are also looking for programs to enhance their skills to actively participate in quality management programs in their own industries. Now they are looking for SLAQ to support them through training which suits their practical needs.