From three-wheeler drivers to beach boys: Sri Lanka’s workforce transformation

To end the intergenerational degradation of the country’s youth, the government should create 250,000 university and vocational training opportunities. Else, we are doomed as a nation

For a country that takes pride in its free education system, Sri Lanka has done a miserable job in putting its human capital to productive work. 

That is the story since the independence, but let’s leave the first three decades defined by quasi-socialist policies and skyrocketing fertility growths, which created enormous pressure on the state. But the story has not changed much since the economy was liberalized, and population growth is well under control- fertility growth now is barely at replacement level or less.

One might observe a few concerted areas where the bulk of jobs were made available for the Sri Lankan youth during the last four decades.

First wave

First was the export of surplus human capital, unskilled and low-skilled young men and women, to the Middle East to work menial jobs as housemaids and drivers. The practice continues still at a much larger magnitude and the skill set has hardly changed. Nearly 300,000 (297,664) Sri Lankans left for foreign jobs last year, 75 per cent to the Middle East. Nearly 60 per cent of all Sri Lankans departures for foreign employment are classified as low-skilled or semi-skilled, including housemaids.

Approximately 1.2 million Sri Lankans are working abroad. They sent home US$  5.97 billion last year to bail out the cash-strapped country.

The second was the garment boom in the 80s and 90s, which employed a large part of the surplus unskilled and semi-skilled workforce. Today, the garment industry directly employs approximately 350,000 workers. Apparel and textile exports earned US$ 4.8 billion last year. Generally, the garment industry is considered the first step on the industrialization ladder. Countries that began with textiles, say, for instance, Taiwan, South Korea, and even Thailand, have moved up the ladder to build semiconductors, cars and computers. Whereas Sri Lankan women are still trapped in an industry which now pays them, in some estimates, less than their peers in Bangladesh and Vietnam. 

Though not well organized, the third wave was both a response to the acute shortage of jobs and the industries’ inability to pay a living wage. The result was the growth of half a million-strong army of three-wheeler drivers. If one were to consider that as a single employment sector, that would be only second to the 1.25 million public sector workforce.

One might also add the military services, which had approximately 300,000 personnel, as another area. However, the enlargement of security forces was necessitated by the real national security concerns of 30 years of terrorist war. Perhaps the future would have been different if Sri Lanka had 50,000 active military personnel in 1980. 
The fourth wave is now in the making. Should the tourism industry sustain its momentum, which most likely it would, save unfortunate extraneous factors, those in the Down South would have the opportunity to see the evolution of a legion of beach boys in the coming three to four years, not second to their three-wheeler cousins. Already, much of excess, unproductive labour is heading that way. There is nothing wrong with peddling some goods, showing places and sleeping with a woman in exchange for compensation. But the problem is, like the previous groups, this cohort also has very little employable skills. They might add colour to tourism, but little value and the colour fade away. 

This would be the beginning of the dumbing down of another generation of youth. 

Higher education as a privilege of a few 

These four sectors of formal or informal employment are a gory case of how Sri Lanka has cannibalized its youth. This has happened for two main reasons. Firstly, due to intrinsic constraints, it lacks the economics of scale that its populous peer competitors like Vietnam or Thailand have, and it has to work extra hard to attract real investors. But bureaucratic red tape incompetency and a labyrinth of self-imposed constraints have made it harder, making what Sri Lanka is today.

This government’s proposed Economic Transformation Bill, which will repeal the Board of Investment and, among many other salutary measures,  allow the private sector to manage economic zones, would address some of the inherent drawbacks in Sri Lanka’s investment outlook and make this a more palatable destination for the investors. 
However, there is a second problem. Every year, after 13 years in formal education, of an estimated 300,000 students who complete secondary education,  around 250,000 are abandoned by the state with no prospects. Take numbers, for example: In 2021, 311,000 sat for the GCE advanced level exam. Of them, 195,000 qualified for university. But, only 43,000 were accepted to public universities. Of the rest, 12,400 students enrolled in non-state university programs. Another 8,000 registered in affiliated foreign universities recognized by the Ministry of Education. 

What happens to 250,000 students, which is 5/6th of the cohort? 

The picture is further disturbing if one is to count those who drop out after the ordinary levels, though the numbers have recently declined.

If the children of this country are to have an equitable future, easy access to tertiary education, universities, and vocational training institutions should not be a privilege for a few.

Build tech schools, not garment factories 

This is not rocket science. Sri Lanka needs to create an additional 250,000  university and vocational training opportunities for annual intake.  

That is a hurricane task that the government cannot accomplish alone. Nor should it expect the market forces to do the job.   A forward-looking government should work on a comprehensive public-private partnership to create higher education opportunities for all its children. With an additional government commitment of US$ 500 million a year and corresponding private sector investment, the government should be able to create 250,000 degree and vocational training opportunities within five years. That would be the most transformative investment in human capital since the introduction of free education.

Second, rather than sustaining a patently unequal status quo that has turned university education into a privilege for a privileged few, the government should introduce a national policy on tuition fee loans, as has been the case in most advanced economies. 

Third, of course, there should be a regulatory and accreditation mechanism for higher education institutions. However, should Sri Lanka manage to onboard branches of the top 500 world universities, they already have that. 

Fourth, there should be some form of laws that make tertiary education compulsory. It should phase out sending unskilled workers abroad and send them to training. Now, Rishi Sunak’s Tories are promising to introduce mandatory national service to British youth if the party comes to power, and no one has cried about the impingement of rights.

More than the UK, the countries of Sri Lanka’s economic and social standards require laws that provide coherence and guidance. 

If the domestic economy cannot provide gainful employment, which is most likely the immediate case,  they can still go abroad and make a decent living. The only thing is that Sri Lanka should strive to export coders, not cleaners. 

This country is not short of legitimate constructive critics who desire the best for its people and sockpuppets who oppose everything. But why has not anyone talked seriously about this inter-generational degradation of the country’s youth? That is probably because this callous status quo is normalized by its long existence. Probably because advocating for changes to it is not politically profitable. There have always been dogmatic lefties and self-serving charlatans who cry blue murder of an imaginary loss of free education. Rather, this has seriously eroded the promise of free education. It has robbed the future of an overwhelming number of our children.  

In the upcoming elections, Sri Lankans should elect a government and president who should conclusively redress this grave injustice to the country’s children. That alone could propel the country into the next phase of economic transformation. 

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