Even though national skills development and vocational training activities are only now being assigned to his Ministry, such capacity boosting efforts are no strange activities to him nor to his Ministry, said Sri Lanka’s newest Minister to take over the Vocational Training portfolio on 27 March.
“I believe my Ministry can successfully make use of the Vocational and Skills Development institutions assigned to us” said the Minister of Industry Commerce, Resettlement of Protracted Displaced Persons, Cooperative Development, Skills Development and Vocational Training Rishad Bathiudeen on 27 March. He was speaking immediately after assuming duties at “Skills Development and Vocational Training Ministry” in Narahenpita-the latest addition to his “Industry Commerce, Resettlement of Protracted Displaced Persons, Cooperative Development” portfolio. He was joined by his Ministry Secretary KDN Ranjith Ashoka and Deputy Minister of Skills Development and Vocational Training Karunaratne Paranavithana. Accordingly, the National Institute of Technical Education, Ocean University of Sri Lanka (National Institute of Fisheries and Nautical Engineering), Ceylon German Technical Training Institute, National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority, National Institute of Business Management, Skills Development Fund Ltd, Sri Lanka Institute of Printing, Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission, Vocational Training Authority of Sri Lanka, Department of Technical Education and Training, and University of Vocational Technology have been brought under Minister Bathiudeen under Extraordinary Gazette 2115/10 of 18 March. The same gazette also brought the Department of Commerce under Minister Bathiudeen.
“I believe that many institutions under us such as NEDA, SLITA, the Crafts Council, Cooperatives and IDB have already been performing in-depth training sessions to their stakeholders and therefore my Ministry can successfully use the newly assigned Vocational and Skills Development institutions. With the return of Department of Commerce we are able to greatly contribute to export development vision of the government and I look forward to work with Hon Minister Malik Samarawickreme to enhance our international trade” Minister Bathiudeen added.
Accordingly, the Industry and Commerce Ministry trained more than 21000 Sri Lankans across many sectors-domestic industries (rubber, ceramics, polymer etc), handicrafts, new entrepreneurs, small industrialists and even cooperative development in 2018. These included countless training programs and large number of trainess –but there were several top-line projects; 68 personnel in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for Rubber Technology, 148 under private & public sector Rubber Cluster Young Network (RCYN) under the Rubber Master Plan, 6964 industrialist training under Industrial Development Board’s 232 training programs, Sri Lanka Institute of Textile and Apparel (SLITA) conducted 137 sought-after apparel programs, 206 trainees were in Small & Medium Enterprises Skills Development Training Program of SLITA to enhance the technical and managerial skills of the small & medium apparel sector, 263 industry personnel in the Productivity Improvement Programme (PIP) of SLITA, 263 trained in programs for Technical Staff of 09 factories increasing efficiency of these factories from 10% to 15%, training for training Programmes for 12,100 new and existing entrepreneurs by National Enterprise Development Authority (NEDA-South Asia’s first UNESCO-APEID entrepreneur education meet in Sri Lanka was also held by in October 2018 resulting in Trincomalee Declaration on Entrepreneur Education), 100 youth were trained by NEDA’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (with Universities, 110 were trained on new designs by National Design Centre (NDC), 906 Craftsmen trained under Providing Knowledge on New Design & New Technology project also by NDC, 798 full-time apprentice craftsmen and 72 master craftsmen were trained by National Crafts Council (NCC) , and another 875 apprentices across 112 craft training centers functioning in 17 craft sectors in 19 Districts were also trained by NCC, bringing the total personnel trained under Industry and Commerce Ministry last year above 12000.