NATIONAL POLICY A MUST TO PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT TO GRADUATES: JVP

JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti yesterday urged the government to introduce a national policy to provide employment to unemployed youth including graduates.

He told a news conference that many university students who had graduated had not been given jobs since March 2012 except for a limited number of graduates being recruited as teachers in the Uva and Southern Provinces, and that too after massive protests were staged by them.

It is the responsibility of the government to utilize the knowledge of these graduates for the benefit of the country

He said the government did not have a mechanism to calculate the number employees going on retirement and new jobs that needed to be created annually. “It is the responsibility of the government to utilize the knowledge of these graduates for the benefit of the country as it spends one million rupees on average for an arts and commerce graduate while Rs. 1.5 million is spent on a medicine and engineering graduate,” he said. He said there were about 57,000 unemployed graduates at present and added that the government should introduce a mechanism to provide employment to all graduates without putting restrictions on them such as age or based on whether they had graduated externally or internally.

“There are enough vacancies in government institutions. But the government has no mechanism to identify and fill them with the right persons,” he said.

He said the issue of unemployment among graduates was a serious issue and added that the JVP was ready to support them in their efforts to find suitable employment for them.