e-diriya IT centre, a boon for school-leavers

The fourth of the ICTA-initiated e-diriya IT Centres that are being set up in each Province was opened in the Sabaragamuwa Province recently.

Telecommunication and Information Technology Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya and Sabaragamuwa Province Chief Minister Mahipala Herath opened the centre at the Zonal Education office in Kegalle recently.

Telecommunication and IT Minister said that while general development of the country was taking place, improvement was also taking place in information and technology. "ICT has the special characteristic of leveraging development by leapfrogging from unnecessary and tedious traditional stages without losing any values in the process. The IT Centre set up today will empower public service personnel. When public servants are better empowered, the people will be better served."

"The centre will improve employability specially of school-leavers and those who could not enter the university. The centre will be a boon to unemployed graduates in gaining employment. The Government has provided jobs to around 52,000 graduates. This is a record," the Minister said.

Sabaragamuwa Province Chief Minister Mahipala Herath said, "Thanks to President Mahinda Rajapaksa declaring 2009 as the Year of English and IT, the Sabaragamuwa Province has today made great strides. Improvements have been made in the so-called difficult areas of Sabaragamuwa to such an extent, that the schools therein are not second to top schools in Colombo."

"The percentage of good results at public examinations in schools in area is on par with that in the prestigious schools in Colombo such as Ananda and Nalanda," he said.

ICTA Chairman, Peradeniya University Chancellor and Senior Presidential Advisor, Prof. P. W. Epasinghe said, "A few years ago ICT was the prerogative of the elite. The epoch-making decision President Rajapaksa made about a decade ago is yielding people-friendly results. This decision became specially accentuated from the time he became Prime Minister in April 2004."

"ICT has now become a facility widely used even by the very poor. The guidance of the President in this regard brought about this innovation of making the dividends of ICT reach all. Hardware and software to make public services go digital are futile if the staff concerned are not trained to use these facilities," he said.

"The IT centre will train Provincial Government employees. At the same time the centre will provide basic ICT training to the residents of the area specially those of the low income strata," the Professor said.

The first ICTA-initiated Provincial level IT Centre was set up in the North Central Province, while the second was launched in the Northern Province. The third province to have the IT centre was the Eastern Province.