The Session conducted 22nd September 2016 at the National Chamber Auditorium

1. S.Thanigaseelan, Asst Director NHRDC, Ministry Of National Policies &
Economic Affairs
Skills Gap of Sri Lanka
Becoming an IT-BPO
Destination

2. National ICT Network Session- Colombo

3. 22nd September
2016
at the
National
Chamber
Auditorium

4. Opportunities &
Trend- Sri Lanka
• It is expected that IT/BPO industry will contribute over US$ 5
Billion by 2020.
• It is also expected that a 1,000 startups in the technology
sector will be created by 2020.
• Sri Lanka annually produces around 7,500 graduates in ICT
and related disciplines.
• An optimistic estimate of the man-power requirements for
this development puts the requirements at around 25,000
qualified persons per year conserving the total man-power
requirements of IT industry at around 200,000 persons by
2022 to generate US$ 5 billion.
• ICT industry is estimated that around 80,000 persons are
employed in the industry that generates around US$ 800
million

5. The predicted shortage skills in
developed countries.
Country Shortage Year
United States 190,000 2018
Canada 182,000 2019
UK and Europe 850,000 2018
Source: Report published by Mckensey states that by 2018

6. ICT SECTOR TRAINING PROGRAMS AT
NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
• The ICT sector stands
among other sectors at the
2nd place with 704 training
programs throughout the
country.
• Information
Communication and
Multimedia Technology
occupies 11.5% of the
training space in the island.
• The ICT sector has 122
unique courses conducted
by nine training institutions.
IC & MT SECTOR
UNIQUE TRAINING COURSES
INSTITUTE UNIQUE
COURSES
National Youth Service Council 40
National Apprentice and Industrial
Training Authority
24
Vocational Training Authority 21
National Institute of Business
Management
19
Department of Technical Education &
Training
6
Sri Lankan Port Authority 6
University of Vocational Technology 3
Sri Lanka Institute of Printing 2
National Institute of Fisheries &
Nautical Engineering
1
Grand Total 122
Source: IC & MT SECTOR TRAINING, TOWARDS A FUTURE READY WORKFORCE An analysis of training provided with insights 2012-2014

7. Employed opportunities by discipline
SOURCE: http://www.tissl.lk/Presentation1.ppsx

8. • Industry components
• Software services and products
• Business process outsourcing
• IT enabled services
• Hardware
• The story so far
• Rapid growth
• Upgrading
• Diversification
• Positive spillovers
IT-BPO Industry

9. IT-BPO Industry (contd.)
•Spillovers
• From software to BPO and ITES
• Into higher education
• National reputation
• Attitudes, goals and expectations
• Other sectors, e.g., manufacturing
• Individuals
9

10. Rural Development
• Is IT a luxury?
• Not any more
• Rapid, long distance communications a necessity
• Of course nutrition, health, sanitation, housing, basic
education are higher priorities
• IT can play an enabling role
• Reduce transaction costs
• Reduce production costs
• Improve allocative efficiency
10

11. 11
E-Commerce
• B2B and B2C
• B2B is still very limited, restricted to larger firms
• B2C is large in absolute terms, but a very restricted
slice of the economy
• Upper income, urban consumers
• Travel is by far the biggest segment
• Attention economy – time vs. money

12. 12
E-Commerce (contd.)
• Infrastructure challenges
• Payments systems
• Logistics
• Broadband
• Market access
• Small urban enterprises
• Rural handicrafts producers
• Information on opportunities

13. 13
Manufacturing
• Manufacturing sector an underachiever
• National Manufacturing Policy wants to change that
• Empirical evidence suggests that IT investments in
manufacturing have a high payoff
• But actual IT investment is limited – Why?
• Management quality
• Lack of appropriate products for domestic market
• Lack of awareness or knowledge
• Infrastructure constraints
• Coordination failures
• Financial constraints

14. Manufacturing (contd.)
• Where should government policy focus?
• Business environment for all manufacturing
• Labor laws
• Company law
• Financial sector reform
• IT-specific policies
• Tax treatment
• Infrastructure
• Knowledge dissemination
• Standard setting by government
14

15. E-Governance
15
• General problems of governance
• Corruption
• Poor implementation
• Two complementary areas for IT as a tool for
improving governance
• Internal systems and processes
• Citizen-government interfaces
• If one has to prioritize, probably the back-end is more
necessary

16. E-Governance (contd.)
16
• What can IT achieve?
• Transparency and monitoring, leading to more
accountability
• Reducing transaction costs
• Improving responsiveness (another aspect of
accountability)
• Better targeting
• Indian government policy
• Ambitious targets for national e-governance
• Some piecemeal improvements

17. Challenges
• Government expect to create 1 million employment
opportunities by 2020 in such industries.
• Man-power requirement poses a major challenge to the
government and the private sector involved in post-secondary
education.
• While graduates from IT has a lack of skills, especially in
Communication, Team Work, Leadership, Presentation and
lack of awareness in the Work Culture and work ethics have
been identified in several studies.
Manpower supply Requirement Gap
7,500 25,000 17,500

18. Challenges…..
• Lack of work culture, work ethics and softs kills
among the job seekers
• Shortage of graduates and diploma holders with
required attitudes and skills
• Inability of the students to pursue graduate
education due to financial problems
• Unavailability of a program to attract O/L and A/L
dropouts to the IT/BPO industry
• Absence of a concerted national program to build
the skills to be in shortage within the next few years

19. The Way Forwarded
• Provide government support for internship programs. Internship program provide
on-the-job training that improves the job-readiness of students while they are
following their studied.
• Give entrepreneurial ideas to students at the school level.
• A strategy is also needed to capture those who drop out of the school system after
the O/Ls and A/L. This initiative will require coordination among several
government organizations as well as the private sector and IT related industry
associations.
• Produce job oriented people who are equipped with skills needed for jobs.
• Invest in developing soft skills and English skills for a future ready workforce

20. Some of My Photos in the Session
The lighting of the tradition oil lamp by the distinguished invitees

22. Mr. S. Thanigaseelan - Asst Director National Human Resource
Development Council of Sri Lanka bringing greetings at the inaugural
session

24. The afternoon session being rolled out with Mrs. Brigitte Barakat
Siriwardhana as Session Chair

25. The special invitees being appreciated by WUSC-SL Deputy
Programs Director Mr. Deepthi Lamahewa

26. Thanks