President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that young people need more opportunities to pursue higher education and technical education. “We have to ensure that our future generation will become productive citizens, by nurturing them with the required knowledge, skills and abilities. The opportunities young people have to pursue higher education and technical education should be increased,” the [...]

Education

More opportunities for higher education, employment, says President

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President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that young people need more opportunities to pursue higher education and technical education.

“We have to ensure that our future generation will become productive citizens, by nurturing them with the required knowledge, skills and abilities. The opportunities young people have to pursue higher education and technical education should be increased,” the President said after declaring open the new session in Parliament.

The President also said educational facilities, including higher education, and employment opportunities need to be improved.

“The necessary infrastructure facilities must be developed as soon as possible. The effective use of state univeristies and other higher educational institutions will allow more students to access higher education.”

“Certain courses taught in universities today, do not meet market requirements. In the near future, we want to introduce optional short-term courses, so university students can meet the needs of the modern job market. Universities and other higher education institutions need more freedom in enrolling students and in restructuring their syllabi to meet the needs of the job market.”

“Educational institutions teach diploma level programmes must be upgraded to become degree awarding institutions. As a first step, we will upgrade teacher training schools and nursing schools to degree awarding level.”

“The shortage of trained graduate teachers continues to be a problem in the education sector. By upgrading the 3-year diploma programme in Nursing into a 4-year degree, that will meet international standards, and by improving the English knowledge of nurses, they will be able to seek work abroad.”

“Colleges of technical and industrial training will need to be strengthened to cater to more students who have studied only up to the O/L examinations. These institutions will need more funding and facilities.

“This will enable us to create a workforce with vocational training of international standards, and trained personnel that can seek high-income employment either here or abroad.”

“Many young people lose employment opportunities because they are not fluent in English. We will introduce a programme to improve English education in all schools, and recruit the required teaching staff.”

“We will entrust our foreign missions with responsibilities to seek employment opportunities for our youth. We can promote Sri Lanka’s image in the global job market and earn more foreign income by sending people trained and qualified in many fields to work abroad.”

“The education sector can become an important source of foreign exchange. Many Sri Lankan students presently study in Asian higher educational institutes. Instead of sending our students abroad to expensive universities, we should introduce a programme to attract foreign students here. We must also prepare short term and long term programmes to improve the global ranking of our universities.”

“It is also important to direct our youth to learn about new innovations and conduct research. We must improve our education system to facilitate these changes immediately. We must also promote English education and IT among our youth,” the President said. (SJ)

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