{"id":102500,"date":"2020-05-18T16:38:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T23:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102500"},"modified":"2020-05-18T16:38:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T23:38:20","slug":"education-reforms-required-to-build-a-system-that-is-looking-for-graduates-than-graduates-looking-for-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/18\/education-reforms-required-to-build-a-system-that-is-looking-for-graduates-than-graduates-looking-for-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"EDUCATION REFORMS REQUIRED TO BUILD A SYSTEM THAT IS LOOKING FOR GRADUATES THAN GRADUATES LOOKING FOR JOBS"},"content":{"rendered":"

B<\/em>Y<\/span> EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

I\nread a news report that contained an address of Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the\npresident of Sri Lanka, and reported that the president stated the country\nneeds to build a system that looks for graduates to employ in the organizations\nthan graduates are looking for jobs. \nThis statement directed a very good vision and stressed that many\nmissions need to achieve the vision. The literal meaning of the statement may\nnot applicable, but the message gave to the policy-makers was strong and\nexpects a radical change in education policies in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmission relates to the vision is broader and the president stated before his\nelection to the office in the last year that he will change education policies\nto make a country that educated people would not leave the country people who\nleft come back. The vision has a strong relationship with education reforms\nthat are stuck with bureaucrats either they do not know how to develop policies\nin the mission to achieve the vision or the bureaucrats are sabotaging vis a\nviz policy aims of the president or there is a problem with a shortage of funds\nto spend for policy development.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntraditional university education aims at granting a degree to university\nstudents to use it end of the name and university students satisfied with the\nrole of universities as the job vacancies in the economy were sufficient to\nabsorb all graduates pass out in each year. \nWhen the number of universities increased and student numbers increased\nto show that there are students to universities, but the quality of education\nand the quality of degree programs were neglected by the university authorities,\nand when students passed out after graduation it was a problem that university\ngraduates had no jobs in the market. The issue has a positive relationship with\neconomic growth and development. Although a heavyweight should be given to the\nissues in education policies economic issues are not free from the aggregate\nissue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthe past 50 years, graduate unemployment became a political issue, and\npoliticians of the country have been using graduate unemployment to mislead\nvoters and politicians who used the issue to expand political power university\nlevel finding a solution to the problem when the party achieves the power of\nthe country.  The best example is the\nelection in 1970 and 1977. Two different political parties attracted to power\nin 1970 and 1977 and no party has developed policies to solve the unemployment\nproblem of graduates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graduate\nunemployment in the country has been a problem related to education reforms,\nuniversity authority would have taken steps to reform education to improve the\nquality of education that creates the demand for graduates in the job market.\nIt needed collaboration with economic policymakers of both sides, and the\nactivities of policymakers showed that they were working isolation and finally\nnot a single side achieved objectives of policymaking.  Traditionally, university authorities did not\nbelieve that university education concerns with the development of knowledge,\nskills, quality, values, and applicability of knowledge, skills, and values in\nthe workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nthe late 1970s, university graduates in Sri Lanka had opportunities to embark\non the job market in Sri Lanka as well as in other countries, but university\nauthorities did not initiate programs that promote knowledge, skills, and\nvalues of graduates.  They haven\u2019t\npromoted opportunities for graduates to communicate in various languages such\nas English and European languages like French German and Russian, and Asian\nlanguages such as Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, and others. Left political\nparties such as JVP created problems university education forcing authorities\nto close universities and Ragging used to promote students to leave university\nand go oversea for education.  These\nproblems new university authorities and never proposed workable solutions to\nthe government. Some members of university authorities were active members of\nJVP, who were interested in promoting the political philosophy at the cost of\nstudents destroying higher education in Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwere negative attitudes towards skills learning and many mythical views on\nblue-collar jobs. Left political parties invaded universities and university\nauthorities have been prevented to reform education and diversification of\nprograms and university students used to achieve political purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nachieve the expectation of Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa all universities should unite\nto work policy decisions. During the CONID 19 problems, it seemed that many\nstudents have gone overseas for various education programs, which have not\nquality and recognition.  They wasted\nparents\u2019 money and foreign exchange reserves of the country.  As a person with experience in education,\neconomic and Banking, and finance policy development, I would live to suggest\nthe following policy actions in favor of the president\u2019s expectation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Students in Grade 10 and\n12 must be given internationally recognized vocational training level\nCertificate 1 and 2 while they are gaining \neducation in high schools. When students complete Grade 10 and 12 they\nwill get two certificates that are grade 10 or 12 certificates in general\neducation and vocational training certificates. The vocational training should\nbe given high schools combining with technical and vocational institutions and\none day of a week should be given to study vocational and technical skills as\npreferred by students.  Private tuitions\nmust stop and students should be allowed to participate in general and\nvocational education. When students completed Grade 12 education, they can go\nto universities or technical colleges for studies whatever the area they like\nto study.   Vocational and technical\neducation should be offered by technical-vocational institutions.  Students can gain theoretical education at\nschools from visiting teachers from TVET institutions, and practical training\nwill gain from attending programs in TVET institutions. No student will missout\non this tertiary education from this system. \nThis system will allow students to be competent in various languages and\nskills.  <\/li>
  • The universities should\nallow programs from National Advanced Certificate to Postgraduate level and\nthose students, who completed diploma level studies and working in workplaces\nshould be allowed to gain university education in after-hours and weekends.\nRagging must be treated as criminal acts and those who engage in ragging must\nbe given rigorous presentments.<\/li>
  • University education must\nbe based on competency and research, and campus recruitments should be promoted\nto show jobs looking for graduates. <\/li>
  • Education is an\ninvestment in a country that is the most gainful investment and the government\nshould not reluctant to invest 5% of total spending on education and training.<\/li>
  • The government needs to\nidentify a list of vocational training in terms of demand for jobs and the list\nshould be annually updated.  Students\nshould be allowed to choose a program that they prefer, but not what parents\nwant. Any vocational training program will be useful to doctors, engineers,\ncomputer programmers, researchers, and any person.  <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS I read a news report that contained an address of Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka, and reported that the president stated the country needs to build a system that looks for graduates to employ in the organizations than graduates are looking for jobs.  This statement directed a very good vision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}