Between 1983 and 2024, devastation after devastation hit Sri Lanka, disrupting the economy and sky-rocketing the unemployment and poverty rates. During the height of the Sri Lankan Civil War between 1983 and 2009, upwards of 36% of youth, ages 18 to 24, were unemployed and about 23.4% of the population lived on $3 per day. Less than a decade after the war, ISIS bombed the country in 2019, drying up economic boosts tied to tourism and sinking the country into an economic crisis lasting for five years. Recently, the global pandemic and the U.S. and Iran war raised fuel prices, national unemployment and poverty rates remain high. However, both have been on a steady decline, partly due to the vocational education training centers in Sri Lanka, otherwise known as VETs.

Context of Northeast Sri Lanka

While tension between the Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic groups seems to originate out of cultural disputes, British imperialism certainly provoked it. Experts suggest that the Sinhalese community felt threatened due to the Tamil group’s prosperity growth, which was partly a response to British favoritism. Following imperial rule, the Sinhalese slowly gained power in government, gradually passing laws effectively disenfranchising Tamil people. The Sinhala Only Act, for instance, made Sinhala the only official language of Sri Lanka and created barriers for Tamil people seeking employment or roles within the government.

Discriminatory practices resulted in a proposition for Tamil Eelam, a separate state for Tamils. By the 1980s, Tamils lived almost entirely separate from Sinhalese, occupying the north and east while most Sinhalese lived in southern, western and central Sri Lanka. Following riots targeting Tamils in July 1983, now known as Black July, the Sri Lankan Civil War began. It devastated the country and its economy, lasting until 2009, when the Sri Lankan government announced that it killed the leader of Tamil Eelam.

The end of the war was certainly not the end of discrimination against Tamil people. Sinhalese culture has removed Tamil culture in areas of predominantly Tamil ethnicity, replacing monuments, road signs, street and village names and places of worship. According to a report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the northeast of Sri Lanka, predominantly Tamil, is multi-dimensionally poor. Large tracts of privately owned land are under military occupation, and the World Bank has noted that 500,000 people lost their jobs due to the economic crisis between 2019 and 2024.

What Are VETs?

Vocational education training centers in Sri Lanka, specific types of programs focused on technical skills for individual jobs, are actively working to reduce unemployment rates. These programs differ from typical education in a number of ways, the key one being prioritization of hands-on experiences of learned skills. Implementation of these programs has been linked with economic growth, as it supports both a skilled workforce in the technical industry and enhanced employability for graduates.

The Impact of Vocational Education Training in Sri Lanka

Vocational education training centers in Sri Lanka have existed since 1893 with the formation of the Government Technical School, but following the Vocational Training Authority of Sri Lanka Act No. 12 of 1995, several new programs were implemented, designed to increase employability. One such program is iLEAD, or the Initiative for Livelihood Education Development, which is part of Action Education. Founded in 2006, iLEAD has since trained more than 12,000 disadvantaged students and built 10 centers across the country, with five centered in northeast districts. Poverty rates have remained high in northeast Sri Lanka, where many still suffer the effects of the civil war, facing marginalization, unemployment and violence. Vocational education training centers in Sri Lanka like programs offered by Action Education have helped those affected receive certification in IT, sales and English, allowing students to obtain nationally and internationally recognized degrees and find employment.

Hope for the Economy of the Future

Focused on bridging the gap between the unemployed and access to education, programs like Action Education are slowly working to reduce poverty rates nationally. Vocational education training centers in Sri Lanka are still limited, and many don’t have proper accreditation, but others are working to increase confidence in young people, teaching them necessary competencies to perform skilled labor. Combating generational poverty that’s the result of a war, a global pandemic and an economic crisis takes time, but these programs are making a difference.

– Madalyn Youngbauer

Madalyn is based in Blaine, MN, USA and focuses on Good News and Global Health for The Borgen Project.

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