Importing talent is only a short term option

Thursday, 10 April 2014 01:34 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Commercial Bank of Ceylon Chairman Dinesh Weerakkody speaking at the Chartered Institute of Marketing CEO Breakfast meeting on Thursday at the Cinnamon Lakeside said that in the last 10 years, the country has made great strides on many fronts, especially in education. However, Sri Lankan universities, due to limited intake capacity, by default only open their doors to the top five to seven percent that sit for the Advance Level exams. The majority joins the work force with limited training. Only around 10% pursue their high-education in foreign universities or their satellite branches in Sri Lanka or enrol into professional qualifications in accounting, finance, management and marketing. These are mainly professional British qualifications like Chartered Institute of Management Accounting, Chartered Institute of Marketing and Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Education reform Therefore as a country we need a strategy to successfully move our young people from education to employment and we need to scale up our interventions for maximum impact because there are many different views among the stake holders on how our young people should be made ready to succeed in entry level positions. As a result of this mismatch education to employment highway has become very messy. Therefore education reform must find way to focus our youth from becoming mere certificate collectors and refocus them to acquire skills and competencies that are needed to deliver on the job. At the same time it is important for professionals to focus on their continuous professional development because the life span of skills is now less than five years. Weerakkody then spoke of the need for the private sector to support the growth and development of employees to help them be as productive and successful as possible in their current and future roles. Responding to a question on the merits of importing talent rather than producing it domestically, especially for the tourism sector, Weerakkody pointed out the resulting structural dependence on foreign talent, and its associated disincentive to capital investment, can delay the desired transition to a knowledge economy by stifling productivity growth, innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. However, importing talent could help to fill critical short-term skills gaps but with a clear strategy for growing our own talent. The right talent strategy can help, he said, the tourism, hospitality, and leisure companies to own the upturn. "As a country we need a strategy to successfully move our young people from education to employment and we need to scale up our interventions for maximum impact because there are many different views among the stake holders on how our young people should be made ready to succeed in entry level positions. As a result of this mismatch education to employment highway has become very messy. Therefore education reform must find way to focus our youth from becoming mere certificate collectors and refocus them to acquire skills and competencies that are needed to deliver on the job. At the same time it is important for professionals to focus on their continuous professional development because the life span of skills is now less than five years – Commercial Bank of Ceylon Chairman Dinesh Weerakkody" Upgrade skills Weerakkody pointed out that in successful export economies the training provided by VTIs jointly to upgrade the skills of their work force has been crucial, since high-level skills are essential for manufacturing related activities. But while vocational training is widely recognised as important, such training is rarely cost-efficient when provided by the State systems. Most firms therefore prefer to do their own training, partly because many skills are company specific. There is ample research to show that the return on the training investment is higher in industries that engage well-educated workers and also in environments where there is rapid technological change. Singapore’s use of training to promote the information technology sector through a concerted program that involved educational institutions, providing training subsidies to schools and office workers, and digitising of the civil service, helped the country to achieve leadership in technology related services. This success illustrates the importance of a government’s ability to foresee a major opportunity and then promote public-private partnership to invest in human capital formation. However, to make it a success, Weerakkody pointed out that businesses must also stand ready to take advantages of the support the Government is willing to provide to promote human capital formation. In addition, the State must ensure that they maintain the per student share, in real terms, of Government funding education. Universities and industry Weerakkody in conclusion observed that since the country’s university education is only limited to the brightest students in the country, the universities need to work very closely with industry to improve syllabi and the facilities to ensure that the country’s brightest students are instilled with the skills and knowledge the country needs so that they can make a meaningful contribution to the country. In addition, we also need to make education more affordable because cost still remains the number one barrier among the youth for not continuing their education. Therefore we need to devise numerous ways to provide additional funds for economically vulnerable populations through scholarships and subsidies.