Foreign remittances helps Sri Lankan economy

by Jayampathy JAYASINGHE

Minister of Public Adminstration and Home Affairs and the Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr. Sarath Amunugama said there are 1.2 million public servants . In addition there are half a million pensioners who await a monthly pension cheque from the government. However the government did not have money to send that cheque. He was addressing the launch of the Institute of Leadership and Management in Colombo last week.

But pressure was taken off as there are one million persons employed abroad who remit US Dollars 3.4 million every year. "If they don't remit that money to the country we would be in big trouble. The fact is that the Sri Lankan economy was run by poor housemaids who are employed in the Middle Eastern countries."

The Minister said another 2.6 million US Dollars was earned by poor women employed in garment factories and another US Dollars 1.2 million was earned by poor women employed in the tea industry.

Referring to education he said 250,000 students sit for the Advanced Level examination every year but only 17,000 students succeed in entering the universities. Although 135,000 students have qualifications to enter universities the government cannot accommodate them all." These large numbers of students can be channelled into productive areas of the private sector as the government cannot employ them all.

To make a valuable contribution to the economy they have to be trained in special fields to meet the requirements of industry and the government. The management training therefore was important, he said.

The minister said if there was a major problem it was in the education system. Even before independence, Sri Lankans invested large sums of money from their budget for education. A study done by Professor Seers of the Sussex University predicted a clash between higher education and the needs of job market in Sri Lanka.

"This was one of the countries where education was free from kindergarten to the university. The good side was that many underprivileged students had received university education." he said.