Saturday 22nd March, 2025

A protest by a group of unemployed graduates has been going on for days near Parliament. The protesters are urging the JVP-led NPP government to fulfil its promise to employ them in the state sector. The government has apparently adopted the proverbial ostrich posture, hoping that the problem will resolve itself without its intervention. But the protesters say they will not go away until the government carries out its promise to them.

There was a heavy police presence near the unemployed graduates’ protest yesterday with a water cannon vehicle at the ready. One can only hope that there won’t be a confrontation between the protesters and the police.

The government has announced its decision to recruit 30,000 more workers into the public service, and it is only natural that the unemployed graduates have taken to the streets, demanding jobs. They are obviously eyeing some of the vacancies which, the government says, have arisen in the state sector.

The state service is already overstaffed as successive governments have used it as a source of employment for their supporters over the years. There is a pressing need to downsize the unproductive, ever-burgeoning public service, which is a drain on the state coffers. We already have one state employee for every 15 citizens.

The government has taken a census of some crop-raiding animals, such as monkeys and peafowl, claiming that it needs reliable data to tackle the problem of depredation in a scientific manner. Curiously, it has not cared to carry out a comprehensive survey on state institutions to find out the excess workers in them and assess the efficiency of those outfits so as to streamline the public service. Progress will continue to elude this country unless its state service is rationalised urgently. Successive governments have baulked at doing so for fear of a political backlash. The UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004) tried to reform the state sector, but it was dislodged and its successor restored the status quo ante.

One’s sympathies are with the protesting unemployed undergraduates; they are some of the victims of the current education and political systems. Most products of Sri Lankan universities lack employability mostly due to deficiencies in the education system, which needs reform.

Students themselves are not without blame for this sorry state of affairs; most of them do not care to gain the skills demanded by the job market. They expect the state to employ them after their graduation. Governments over the decades have given university graduates jobs in the state sector for political reasons. But this practice cannot go on indefinitely, given severe resource constraints and increasing pressure from the international lending agencies to curtail state expenditure. The day may not be far off when the state service has to be downsized whether politicians like it or not.

The government will have to stop dilly-dallying and make a firm policy decision on state sector recruitments. Those who are to graduate from the state universities need to be told the bitter truth, in advance, that they will not be able to secure jobs in the state sector as of right. Unless the government reduces the public sector salary bill drastically to increase its revenue significantly, the economy will not be able to emerge from the present crisis. However, as for the graduates on the warpath near Parliament, the government is left with no alternative but to find ways and means of carrying out its election promise or face the consequences.

What Sri Lankan governments should do is to develop the national economy, bring in educational reforms, take steps to produce employable graduates and create employment opportunities for the country’s youth. Instead, they choose to expand the state sector at the expense of the economy. There’s the rub.