Certain important sectors of our economy are visibly under-managed due mainly to lack of professionalism and therefore, the clear remedy is to provide advanced management and business training to key groups of managers and employees in those sectors, said the Minister of Petroleum Industries Susil Premajayantha. He made those observations while addressing a group of professionals, academics and businessmen at the World Trade Center where the Minister declared-open the training compound of the Graduate School of Management (GSM) recently.

Dr. Kithsiri Edirisinghe presented a copy of the GSM Policy and Programme document to Minister Susil Premajayantha.

Minister Susil Premajayantha launched the website of the Graduate School of Management, www.gsmedu.com.

In order to accelerate economic development projects and move toward the realization of the goals of Mahnida Chintana programmes, we must upgrade the quality and competencies of our workforce and there are various programmes that are in effect for that purpose, the Minister noted.

Speaking further, the Minister suggested that the Graduate School of Management must give priority to higher management training and development because it is at the higher levels of organizations that initiative and foresight are mostly lacking today.

He commended the School for designing new programmes, organizing local and foreign faculty and resource staff, and applying an integrative approach to training, policy studies and research by the School. The Minister opened the School's new website, www.gsmedu.com.

Speaking at the occasion, Professor Gunapala Nanayakkara, Managing Director of the Graduate School of Management said that the GSM aims at developing professional leaders to foster innovation in organizations and business particularly in the key and leading sectors such as agri-business and SMEs, tourism, financial services, healthcare and infrastructure development.

It was the view of Dr. Amal Harsha de Silva, Director of Provincial Health Services of the Western Province that competition between public and private sector health institutions has improved the quality of healthcare delivery while service efficiency could be multiplied by proper training of all categories of health and management professionals.

Dr. Mervyn Gunasekera, Chaiman CIC and Managing Director of LAN Management Services emphasized the importance of training for skill development and ensuring that training effects added to better organizational results at the end of the day. Otherwise, training, like education as such does in many disciplines, would remain largely irrelevant to productivity improvement.

Dr. Kithsiri Edirisinghe, MD of IIHS introduced to the audience the new magazine of GSM, Sri Lankan Professional Leader, and Mr. Prasantha Kularatna, MD/CEO of Premium International Ltd., explained the GSM Programmes and priorities in the context of national development.

Dr. Ranjith Cabral, Dr. Sumith Ananda of Ministry of Health Services, Mr. Praveer Samarasinghe, CEO of World Trade Center, and Mr. Ravi Rajapathirana, CEO of Cyber Concepts Plc. were among the professionals and senior managers present at the occasion. For more information please visit - www.gsmedu.com