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| Sunday, 26 September 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Easy access to infomation vital to bette lives - Lalith Weerathunga By Hiran H.Senewiratne Easy access to information on further education for school leavers is one of the important factors in changing their lives for the better, Secretary to the Prime Minister Lalith Weerathunga said . The available information has not permeated throughout the country, Weerathunga said at the launch of the annual "EDEX 2005", a Careers and Higher Education Fair,organised by the Royal College Union, scheduled to be held at the BMICH from January 13- 15 2005. He said that at present 350,000 students had been admitted to 9500 schools in the country for a year of this number only 15,000 students would gain admittance to local universities. "University dropouts in the country need proper information and guidance for them to pursue further studies to change their lives in a more employable manner",Weerathunga said. He also said that today we have a big noise on the information in the Internet, but of the total population of 20 million only 185,000 have access to the Internet. However, we boast that we have a high literacy rate of more than 91 per cent, but it is sad to say that our ITC literacy rate is less than two per cent, which hinders the majority from access for the information via Internet, he said. Currently, we have a student population of four million.The information on further education along with ICT knowledge should be provided equally to every student in this country to create a better tomorrow,the Secretary to the Prime Minister said. Weerathunga said that organising careers and higher education fair of this nature will be tremendously helpful to everyone including students, university undergraduates,parents and even lecturers. He emphasised the importance of organising Career guidance and education fairs in the outstations, which will help rural people immensely to access for such information Chairman of the Commercial Bank Mahendra Amarasuriya said that Sri Lanka needs skilled employees to face the future trends with confidence.He said that more than 40,000 graduates are unemployed most of whom are Arts graduates.Our private sector demands innovative, creative, English speaking and IT literate persons for employment. Amarasuriya said that education fairs of this nature will help to identify lucrative careers for the people of the country. Principal of Royal College Upali Gunasekera said that with the introduction of education reforms to the country, careers and higher education fairs of this nature are important. He said that with the improvement of the ITC, new employment opportunities are being created globally. These types of fairs will help our schoolleavers schools to pursue new avenues . Secretary- Royal College Union Abhaya Amaradasa said that EDEX 2004 had enormous success earlier this year, which inspired them to organise the coming event in a better way. He said that this exhibition will be augmented by seminars which will focus on areas such as how to write CV/how to face an interview, corporate culture, the perfect employees and corporate ethics. Chairman- EDEX 2005 Mithila Mendis said that this event has been endorsed by the Ministry of Skills Development Vocational and Technical Education. The fair expects to accommodate more than 92 stalls, he said. |
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