'Lack of English knowledge cause for unemployment'

by Ananda Kannangara

"If our graduates are competent in English Language and IT, they can easily find employment without launching unnecessary protest campaigns and demanding that the Government provide them with jobs. Lack of knowledge in Information Technology (IT) and a poor knowledge of the English language are the main reasons for the inability of our university graduates to find suitable employment, especially in the private sector, Higher Education Minister Prof. Visva Warnapala told the Sunday Observer .

Asked whether the Government is responsible for providing employment for university graduates, Prof. Warnapala rejected the claim and said that universities were teaching institutions and not job markets.

The standard of Sri Lankan Universities are deteriorating day by day, mainly due to agitation campaigns, carried out by students which have adversely affected their academic career.

The services rendered by the academics to improve university education in Sri Lanka, are hampered because both academics and the non academics are neither trilingual nor bilingual.

He said it is pathetic as the majority of them were monolingual, either in Sinhala or Tamil. "This situation will hamper their future in this globalised world," Meanwhile former Vice Chancellor of the Sri Jayawardanapura University Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku requested the university higher officials to pay more attention to this crucial issue and take immediate steps to provide them with a good English and IT education, so that, no student will in future, hold demonstrations on the roads demanding the Government to provide them with jobs.