BOOK LAUNCH

Building Career Skills

The Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission has produced a book entitled Building Career Skills, following the decision by Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe to provide additional employability skills to students on Vocational Training courses. This is being used for a Foundation English Course conducted by the Department of Technical Education and Training, which leads to a National Vocational Qualification at Level 1. It will also be used for General Skills development for NVQ Level 3 in centres run by the DTET as well as the Vocational Training Authority.

Communication skills was supposed to be part of all NVC courses but there was no syllabus prescribed for this, and no course material. The Vocational Training Authority had hardly any English teachers but this situation has now been remedied, with the recruitment of nearly 100 teachers on a visiting basis to serve the more than 200 centres run by the VTA.

The Sector Councils recently set up by the Ministry noted the need for more English as well as other soft skills. The course, which introduces many speech exercises, was designed by a team of consultants who have also stressed thinking skills and socialization. Initial training in delivery was provided to DTET and VTA teachers, and the textbook piloted through the new website set up by the TVEC for teaching materials, www.buildingcareerskills, gov. lk

The launch of the first book prepared by the TVEC, entitled Building Career Skills, will take place tomorrow (9th) at 3 pm at the Auditorium of the National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority. The Minister will also at the same event release the book ‘English and Education: in pursuit of Equity and Excellence’ by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, Chairman of the TVEC.

This book, also published by Godage & Bros, is a collection of essays on Secondary and Tertiary Education, dealing in large measure with efforts to broadbase English education. The author was responsible for the reintroduction of English medium in government schools in 2001, and also for developing a university curriculum leading to Degrees in English for those who had not studied English as a subject at the Advanced Level.

The keynote address will be delivered by Prof Lakshman Jayatilleka, Chairman of the National Education Commission, who chaired the Youth Commission in the early nineties and also served as Director General of the National Institute of Education.

‘Adventures of Rudra an Investigator’

‘Adventures of Rudra an Investigator,’ the first collection of short stories by Ananda Liyanage was launched by Foremost Books at the National Library and Documentation Services Board Auditorium, Independence Avenue, Colombo 7. Ananda Liyanage has also authored four novels ‘The Legacy’, ‘The Deception’, ‘The Vengeance’, ‘The Prophecy’, a textbook ‘Mechanics of International Trade’, now in its second edition and a brief biographical essay ‘Reminiscences & Reflections’. All books have been translated into Sinhala.

‘Adventures of Rudra an Investigator’ is a collection of detective short stories of an investigator who lived in colonial Ceylon. The stories mainly cover the period between the two wars in the 20th century and are narrated by his companion. This book contains fascinating factual details of events leading up to the Second World War and historically interesting places and events in Sri Lanka, which readers have come to expect of the author, apart from good old fashioned detective stories without the fast pace and gadgetry of modern ones. A good read by all accounts.