EDEX to conduct career guidance workshops

by Ananda KANNANGARA

The 10th 'EDEX Expo 2013,' Sri Lanka's largest higher education and careers exhibition, organised by the Colombo Royal College Union (RCU) will be held at the BMICH from January 18-20, 2013. The theme of the exhibition will be 'Empower Sri Lankan youth to be globally competitive'.

The exhibition is conducted annually to assist schoolchildren and job seekers find suitable vocational, technical and skills development training after their school career at universities and educational institutions all over the world.

Kamal Abeysinghe

The 'Edex 2013 ' exhibition will also be held in Kandy on January 22 and 26, 2013.

At the briefing at the Royal College Skills Centre, Chairman, EDEX, Kamal Abeysinghe highlighted the invaluable service rendered by EDEX for youth during the past nine years and said it helped thousands of youth to follow a spectrum of local and foreign career guidance programs.

"Sri Lanka is going through a speedy development path and the demand for a skilled and a better-educated workforce is on the increase. Therefore, the aspirations among the youth for highly-paid careers is also on the increase."

He said most urban students and parents are aware of the choices, options and opportunities in post-secondary education and relevant skills that leads to gainful employment, "but the next biggest challenge before us is to reach out to the rural youth."

'EDEX' has taken a decision to expand its services by commencing a series of career guidance workshops, focusing on youth in rural and remote schools.

He said the EDEX web portal w.w.w.edex.lk offers numerous resources to them as a 'one stop' virtual education and careers platform.

EDEX has also launched a program 'Live your Dream' to reach out and offer tangible help to some identified remote schools in the country.

Under this program needy schools will be provided new libraries, IT lab facilities, new roofs, sports equipment and medicines.

EDEX has decided to distribute its tri-lingual quarterly EDEX Magazine free to all secondary schools and 500 regional libraries to make this program a success.

Abeysinghe said at present there are adequate human resources in the Commerce and the Arts streams. Science and Engineering education will be vital to meet emerging challenges in the future, he said.

EDEX Chairman also highlighted the advantages of nanotechnology and emerging ground-breaking ICT advancements and said children living in this century should be given an advanced training for it.

He endorsed the Government's proposed 1,000 secondary school program that offers science and commerce education to a wider student community.

He said some remote schools which lack libraries, IT and other operational assistance should be supported and all stakeholders in society, especially private sector corporate institutions will have to play a bigger role in this regard considering that they will one day become the ultimate beneficiaries as 'potential employers' of these students.

RCU Secretary, Manju Ariyaratne said EDEX was set up in 2004 to offer a better education for youth after their school career to secure gainful employment here and abroad.

The program is conducted under the guidance of the Presidential Secretariat, the Ministries of Education, Higher Education, Youth Affairs and Skills Development and Labour Relations.