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After finishing high school, and then a vocational degree in science, Inoka knew she would need further skills to compete in the job market. She was also aware that more training costs more money, and that her elderly parents – having already raised Inoka’s older siblings – were having trouble making ends meet in rural Sri Lanka. Still, Inoka convinced them that ICT training at the local village telecenter was worthwhile, and her parents managed the five hundred Rupees (fifty dollars) monthly tuition for six months.
“It was difficult to pay,” Inoka Thushari recalled during an interview at the pharmacy where she works. But her parents knew the importance of their daughter’s education. Their sacrifice made Inoka even more committed to finding work after completing the 120 hour course and receiving her diploma. The first step in the job hunt was to seek advice from the telecenter staff where she studied.
When Inoka asked for help, Latha, the telecenter manager, was already one step ahead. Over the past two years, the community telecenter in the village of Sevangala in southern Sri Lanka has been weaving job placement assistance into its ICT training programs. For Inoka, the “jobs bank” resulted in a well-paying and secure full-time job at a pharmacy in the main town five miles up the road. Among the other Sevangala ICT graduates looking for work, so far about 40% have found jobs in this way.
Though it is slowly growing into a more complex database (it now has a website: srilankajobs.net), the jobs bank is really just a simple, logical idea. Why not help your training students find work after their course is over? And while you’re at it, why not have the job search be part of the training sessions in the ICT courses?
Training and job placement go hand-in-hand
Standing in the training center on a hot June afternoon, manager Latha explained the importance of the practical job search aspect of the training program. “When they are studying they upload their CVs and they see what kinds of opportunities are available for them…they can see what are the qualities they should develop to get the job, that way they have a clear idea.” It’s a practical approach that makes sense, says Latha. “While they are there they should know what are the potential in the society, what are the qualities they should develop, and they are opened to the outer world.”
The Sevangala telecenter is a beehive of activity: on a recent Wednesday morning two Buddhist monks sit waiting while a third faxes billing information to his mobile phone service provider; two local government officials stop in to make photocopies; a steady stream of locals use various communications equipment as Rupees slowly fill the wooden cash box. These public services are located in the main entrance, and provide a good portion of the center’s income.
Equally as much traffic heads to the classroom in the back – where Inoka had taken her ICT training. Twelve computer work stations fill the rear of the telece