Need graduates who can perform

A friend in the education ministry told me a story last week. In Sri Lanka there's a village call "Atakalampanna”. There is a small school in this small village. Some time back there was an art teacher in this school. He was very talented. In the first year he was appointed to a school in this village, six students from this school received medals from Shankar international art competition. Second year also they received six medals. This news was published in a very tiny invisible slot of a news paper. So in the second year, principal of this school wrote a letter to one of the education directors. Principal mentioned in his letter that their students are very talented and emerged this much of awards. But there wasn't any place in the school to keep at least the awards. So he requested the education director that, if this school gets a building for the students to study, that will be a great help. Now you must be thinking education director might not have replied as usually what could happen in Sri Lanka. No actually he did reply. Can you imagine what the education director's reply was? Just imagine. He replied saying "Please bring all the medals to the education office. There's enough space to keep the awards. No need for a building". Not only that. He transferred that art master in to Ananda College. (I have nothing against Ananda College. Glad they got a good teacher). In the first year after he joined Ananda College, two students from Ananda College won Shankar competition. But news papers gave them half a page publicity compared to the small place they gave to that small school. This art teacher is the one who later become the very famous art teacher of Ananda College. Please don't misunderstand me. This article is not about that art teacher. I'm happy he got a better place with better facilities. Happy for him and I do respect his talent and service. This is about some thing else. When I heard this, for a moment I felt the tragedy of the education system in this country.

In the papers last week I saw one of our famous ministers has made a comment that there are 48,000 graduates in the public sector and 25,000 are idling without having any work to do. What an unfortunate country? Where is the fault? Normally in private sector, they hire people only if there's a vacancy. Most of the top businesses have a career plan for their staff. They invest on their staff expecting to capitalize on their talent. Why these governments don't have such plans? I know one of the ministries submit a paper saying they need 60 odd graduates. They got 600 graduates. What can they do with this extra staff? Ministers can argue that they have to give jobs to people, otherwise people will die from hunger. But just pump graduates in to anywhere will not solve the problem. They will eventually hate this society after all.

But why does graduates have to go behind politicians and beg for a job? They are the so called most brainy people in this country. Who make these students in to such low level situation? Well in Sri Lanka the cream of this country is selected to universities from one of the most competitive exams in the world. Then what happen to these intelligent students? They have to go through very hard time. It starts with ragging welcome. Then for 4 years they have to be in the campus. Some universities don't allow their students to do a job and earn money or get some experience during that period. Because of this, university students has happen to print book marks, papers and go around buses and every where and beg money for their studies from people who didn't even pass their O/Ls . How sad? Our universities still stick to their old believes. They don't like students doing any other exams too. Because some of these lecturers do not have any qualification more than their first degree. They do not specialize on teaching or they neither do much research. So they never allow their students also to exceed them. In some famous universities in the world, only having a 1st class degree is not a qualification to teach. If you are really good in teaching, if you have far superior knowledge, you can teach even without a degree.

Does what we teach in our universities match for today? Can their graduates compete with other similar students who are professionally qualified with various other exams? (Some of course are very much better I do agree.) I feel our politicians and other policy makers bring these students to universities and then humiliate them. I feel they betray the students to take the revenge that they couldn't go to university. Do they really do any skill development? One of my mates who are qualified from University of Moratuwa told me that none of their graduates are unemployed up to now. I don't know how true that it. But if it is the case that is something a university can be really proud about them selves. How many universities in this country can give such a guarantee?

In other hand students also should know that a university is not a place which gives jobs. Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you have a job. Students should be intelligent enough to understand the tragedy they are in. Some students just spent their 4 years of life in the university doing strikes and ragging (please read the book "Giniralla Conspiracy by Nihal De Silva”) and all sorts of foolish work without taking any effort to develop their skills. They always complained that they do not know English. But as students who have a very high brain capacity, if they really want, they could learn English very well. May be better than the English speaking community in this country. They could assess them selves as to whether they are competent. If they are to stand superior to others, I think their degree certificate is not enough. They should grab skills. They should know about the world around. I think more than all, they have to develop their attitudes. Otherwise they could not market them selves and they will never get a chance to show their abilities to the world.

Another thing is I guess if we can categories the universities in this country as to different sections we can reduce the number of unemployed graduates. I think they have to have some universities to develop skills. Some for only academic and research purposes. Some for job oriented degrees. I don't know how the university system works in other countries. But I feel there is something terribly wrong with some of our universities and our systems and the mind set of our people.

In an interview at TV one of the spokes man said that even at a crisis situation, our garment sector develops. That’s because there are skilled labor in that industry to cater the demand at a world class level. But our IT sector does not develop even at good times, because we do not have enough IT professionals to serve. When are we going to fill this gap? Is the education in country is for the glorification of the politicians and foolish education officers who make these policies? Does the exams of this country focus on testing knowledge or failing students? Only less than 1% of the students go to a university in this country. Just look around. Just think. Is there anything we could do to change this?

People often ask me whether I'm a socialist, do I hate this country, why I always blame some one and various similar questions. No I'm not. I'm a very neutral ordinary citizen. I love this country. If we all try, we could make it a really nice place. What ever it is love to live in this country.

Sri Lankans looses many jobs due to country situation

Yesterday I met a friend who is working for one of the key BPO companies in Sri Lanka. According to him, Sri Lanka is loosing many of the jobs in BPO sector due to the political unsuitability here. Many of critical projects are taken out of Sri Lanka. These projects were again out source to countries such as India, Malaysia & China. Because investors are scared to keep these back offices in Sri Lanka. If there was a bomb blast and if anything happened to staff or if staff can't come to work for one day, that is a problem for them. Because if the staff here gets unable to work for one day, that has a direct impact on their share price with regard to some of the key processes. Some of the staff has made redundant. Some are not yet made redundant, but these professionals who handled most important tasks of the key companies in the world are idling today. They can easily find a job anywhere in the country with their skills, but the problem is they obtained very high salaries with these foreign clients. Because these clients who are operated world wide earned in dollars & pounds. They paid salaries in Rupees. So they did have a competitive advantage. For a Sri Lankan based company who cater for local market, it will be impractical to pay salaries even closer to these margins. Therefore this has a huge impact on our economy. Ultimately these officers will have no option but to leave the country for the same job in another country.

Countries such as India take the advantage out of this. They have already put up some large offices in many south Indian cities just to grab Sri Lankan market. Not only that. They have put up even training colleges to train their employees to receive these high end work. That is something which we never did. Our youngsters managed to do all these tasks without even having any idea what those companies are. They learned it hard way.

Not only BPOs, but even at other sectors we could see this. Just look at the hotel promotions these days. Hotels which cost about Rs 10,000 per night, have now introduced new packages. I saw one such hotel has offered one night, bread and breakfast for Rs3,000 only for Sri Lankan citizens or Sri Lankan VISA holders. They can't give full board package to this amount. But still they have introduced new packages at such comparatively lower rates, because they need to find some ways to survive. Half of the contract staff has sent home. In this sector even the permanent staff do not get attractive high digit salaries. But they had lavish life styles because they received commission from foreign tourists. At the end of the month most of the time, total of these commission exceeded their salary. But now it’s not the case.

These are only 2 examples which I know. In general we all are aware that the politics has an effect on everything and business is very sensitive to these issues. Some one could argue that there's a war going on and we have to tighten our belts. Now days what ever happens, the excuse is war. If you are a patriotic, you have to bear with it for the sake of the mother land. Is government responsible for this tragedy in economic sector of this country? Well economics or business is not my field and I'm not an expert of it. But as a citizen I believe YES. Government is responsible. Do they have any plan to develop the economy of this country? If they don't know what to do, at least they have to appoint some people who can run the game. Except for few I don't see any talented experts on the field. I don't see any plan to boost business or any infrastructure development to attract investment. Its reported that people like Lee Luan Yew and Mahatheir Mohammad also have killed people and abducted people in the early stages after they appointed. But they did develop their country. They didn't do those to take the revenge from anyone or hide witness. They made their countries as wonderful places to live. They made their citizens proud about their country. I think if you are a real patriotic that’s what you should do. Rather than destroying the country further more, if you can build it from scratch that’s great. War or what ever, as a responsible government they should develop the economy of the country. There is a strong private sector in this country and they have taken enough initiative to drive through this out break. But I feel there are things they cannot do. That's why a government is there.

Who can help you when there's a robbery?

Yesterday morning I saw in world news that President Bush who went to Albania has been received a welcome of a hero or a star. People of Albania were gathered to see the American president. Today morning in world news I saw that some body has robbed the president's watch while he hand shake with people. But white house announced that president just removed the watch and put it in his pocket before he goes to people. When I saw this I remembered something else. I met a friend of mine after a long time. He told me that his house has been robbed. Robbers couldn't find much of money from the house, but they have taken some of the goods at that house. As usually happens, he has gone to the police. Put a complain on their books. Next day police had come to their house. Has taken finger prints. Asked every one whether they know who the thief is. They asked whether there are any suspects. They asked neighbors whether they saw anything happened. Then they started walking around the house and tying to find from which door they entered the house , whether roof is strong enough for the thieves to walk on it , whether thief has entered the house while residents were sleeping last night etc etc. Then they have gone away with a promise to catch the suspects within 1 week. It never happened after months also.

Same thing happened to their neighbors. Some body robbed their house too. Knowing what happened to my friend, they did not expect the help of the law or help of the police. They had couple of under world friends around. They seek the under world help to find their stuff. Within 2 days they found the stuff and everything was returned.

Well now my friend has a fair doubt. Where we should really go when we are in trouble? Even though there's a law in thief country, will it be useful most of the occasions? I'm sure our police can find any sort of crime or any sort of suspect. But do they really care? There's a war in the country and everyday big crimes such as killing, raping etc etc takes place. Police department has only few resources to allocate for all the incidents reported. So day by day, small incidents are neglected. May be these robberies are not worth millions and comparatively small for police department. But for the victims who faced it has much more value for it. May be its’ everything they earned all their life. May be it has much more sentimental value. For such people, when the police never care to find the suspects, that it self is a shock to them. They live with anger and frustration. My friend's little daughter is saying now it self she will never go to police for anything in the future. This is only a primary stage where the society looses its confidence on law. This could ultimately lead to the hatred towards the country.

There are so many criminals around us. Some of them are army deserters and it’s difficult for the police to deal with them. So police thinks its better they mind their own business. I put forward this question with one of the senior police officer whom I met. What he said was, if they are to get information they will have to hit the suspects. Otherwise no one will come voluntarily and say "yes I did it” unless they are out of their senses. But when the police do those human rights organizations comes against them. According to new laws police officers will have to pay compensation personally if they are charges with human rights cases. It’s true that these laws came with a back ground. Police was treating even innocent people very badly at a particular time and some suspects died in the remand. So I'm always standing by the human rights laws. My friend believes that they are any way a pain to the society so let them die. This police officer's question was “then why don’t you go and complain to a human rights organization when you got robbed”. Because when someone steal you, that violates your rights. Hm who knows? Every coin has 2 sides. But I cannot agree with the fact that these police officers are not doing their job properly and using human rights laws as an excuse. What should we do now? Either we should look after our own security as president J R Jayawardana said. Can we rely on police in every case?