Standards and certification

Youth spend a significant amount of resources on obtaining privately provided training. An issue that is of highest importance is setting standards for various skills that are adopted nationally and linked to international quality standards. Standards for a number of occupations have been set up by NAITA but these are not recognised by other vocational training institutes even by those working under the same Ministry. Every Ministry and institution in fact sets its own standards. Rather than being contingent on acquiring a certain competency, certificates are often issued based on the success of the trainee in achieving a certain grade in a number of courses. The TEVC has already initiated preliminary work required for establishing a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) System with a view to establish skill standards for the TEVT sector. Immediate steps must be taken to develop the system and implement it in the near future.

Setting standards is time consuming as it involves an agreement among employers and training providers as well as revision of curricula and possibly an updating of training equipment. It also involves periodical monitoring with a view to updating quality levels of proficiency. VTA considers itself as the competent authority to issue certificates of competence for overseas employment. However, VTAʹs certification of competence is well below international standards. NAITA has proposed the setting up of a separate stream of training that could be accredited by the ʺCity and Guildsʺ in the UK and therefore more accepted internationally. Under the ADB Skills Development

Project, some 45 such occupations have been identified as key occupations. As a further guide one can also refer to the occupational opportunities for national and overseas employment listed in the National Employment Policy Report for Sri Lanka issued by MOLRFE16_{, and in this way arrive at a list}

of priority key occupations for which internationally recognised standards can be set. 4.4.4. Career guidance and training opportunities

Career Guidance (CG) is directly related to the link between training and youth unemployment. Career guidance and counselling helps youth select prospective careers and the related education and training path they need to follow in order to fulfil their aspiration and interests, taking in to consideration job realities and opportunities. This includes avoiding stereotyping certain categories of youth (e.g. disabled youth) into low skill or certain job categories, rather than recognizing their potentials and abilities.

Sri Lankan youth face two inter-related problems; first, ineffective counselling, second, a dearth of information on what is available in terms of effective and relevant training. Many studies also indicate the pivotal role parents and teachers play in providing career guidance to young people. More often than not, these people’s advice is seen as the only option, rather than one of many options. Therefore, while formal CD programmes need to be developed, the influence parents and teachers have on young people must be seriously considered and incorporated into the overall concept, including strategies to provide awareness on career guidance programs for parents and teachers.

According to a tracer study done by the World Bank in 2005, 67 percent of the employed persons with vocational training are wage employees and 24 percent of them are own account workers. In terms of gender the share of wage employees among females is higher (74%) than that of males (65%). In contrast, the male share of own account workers with vocational training is 27 percent as against 17 percent among females. Among the unemployed with vocational training, almost half (42%) have received education up to GCE A/L while another quarter (26%) have studied up to GCE O/L. In terms of gender, the highest rate of unemployment with vocational training (40%) is reported among males with year 1-10 level education as against the females with GCE A/L education (56%).

An analysis of QLF data for 2003/2004 also reveals that 53.9 percent of the TEVT graduates who had received computer training (for Data Entry Operators) are unemployed while 29.8 percent who had received clerical related training are unemployed. In contrast, TEVT graduates who had received training in carpentry, masonry, printing, gem cutting, plumbing etc. record a very low unemployment rate8_{. This clearly points to the need for having more formal career guidance services in establishing}

better links between training and youth employment.

Several institutions are involved in providing counselling in the country. They include the MOE, Technical and Vocational Training Institutes, NYSC, MoL&FE as well as NAITA and VTA. Most of the services provided are rudimentary, sometimes carried out as a one-day school event or a one week isolated single event, or a lecture at an institute. They are all hampered by the lack of a national policy that identifies who should do what, how and at what level on the education and training ladder. This is further compounded by the absence of any reliable labour market information and the lack of trained counsellors to render the needed service.

There is strong evidence from studies done on youth issues, pointing to the need for a countrywide counselling and guidance system integrated into the educational and training institutions, which looks holistically at the psychological, socio-cultural as well as career guidance aspects of counselling

16 _{Ministry of Labour Relations and Foreign Employment. Draft national Employment policy for Sri Lanka. Colombo,} May 2002. p.p. 36-39

(Hettige 2005)17_{. Systematic counselling and guidance should start by defining both the policy}

objectives and the actors. It should rest on solid information from the labour market. It should also rely on an updated database of the training courses that are offered. At present, counsellors rely on prospectuses of different training agencies and various articles and clippings from magazines.