by
Published on: Feb 7, 2004
Topic:
Type: Opinions

Sri Lanka is a country full of resources and with free education; the literacy rate is higher than other SAARC countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But sadly, with all those human and terrestrial resources, the economy of the country, the unemployment rate and the development of the country is not up to the standard it should be.

The reasons for this are:

1. Unemployment leads to tribulations from stress to major crimes that we see daily in media

2. The whole economy is depending on the World Bank and with the weight of the interest rates Sri Lanka is being put into a position where it by no means can pay back the debt it will have to settle with the I M F.

3. Educated youth seek migrate to other western countries where they can find healthier professions and the money the government had invested in those peoples education is gone and their intelligence and knowledge is used for the sake of other countries.

4. People are loosing their confidence in the democratic process. Take the conflict in the North as an example where the ghastly financial situation enforced the youth to take arms.

The fact that the root cause for this is the appalling management of the policy makers of the country can not be disregarded. It is an extremely upsetting situation as Sri Lanka does not have a national policy.

Even with the free education system here in Sri Lanka, we can not be contented with the opportunities which the village population have in education or in the job market with the lack of beneficial information. Both the proficiency in the English language and computer studies is not in a situation to be happy about, rather it is in a position to agonize over. It is true that the level of both English and basic computer knowledge has soared in Colombo during the last decade or so, but the fact that the same results did not occur in the villages is a fact the government and the policy makers in Sri Lanka should be concerned with.

Both the private sector and the government should be generously investing money in such places for activities such as computer training workshops, conducting English lecture sessions, interactive discussions with youth groups to find youth who possess the ability to provide leadership to their groups in above mentioned activities and to act as representatives of the regions who will be facilitating the activities.

Resources alone is not adequate to progress the conditions in Sri Lanka, positive mind frames should be instilled in the village communities and youth, and this can be done by presenting them with examples of people who had worked their lives from the ground level up to a superior position in the society.

There are lot of organizations active in Sri Lanka dealing with issues relating to unemployment, ICT among others but the sad fact is that the existing groups are not appropriately linked up collectively. The groups should be functioning as one structure which will enable them to improve their activities and make them more effective by reaching more people.



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