Youth who pass out of Sri Lanka’s education system do not meet the requirements of the job market, said former Mayor of Colombo, Rosy Senanayake.
She was speaking at the Japan-Sri Lanka Women’s Networking event in Colombo co-organised by the Embassy of Japan in Sri Lanka and Women in Management.
She said that this is a major issue that needs to be corrected. “Though youth have a high literacy rate this is not reflected in the job market.”
Senanayake said that less women are involved in top management in the corporate sector and several other areas. This is also evident in the Small and Medium business sector. “This is why we don’t see many ‘champion women’ in Sri Lankan corporate and many other sectors.”
Japanese Representative for the G20 Empower (The G20 Alliance for the Empowerment and Progression of Women’s Economic Representation), Michiko Achilles, also said that Japan too faced a similar issue where only few women were involved in management.
“To correct this gender mismatch, the Japanese government brought out a request in 2012 that companies should have 30% of women in senior management positions by 2025. I am happy to note that Japan is successfully moving towards achieving this target well before 2030,” she said.
Achilles said that from 2012 to 2021 the women’s workforce in Japan has increased by 3.4 million.
A panel discussion followed.
The event aims to establish a network among gender specialists and women-related entrepreneurs and to explore possibilities of future cooperation between Sri Lanka and Japan for enhanced women’s empowerment.