Sri Lanka graduate recruitment programme goes ahead overloading public sector

Pressure is mounting against certain appointments of persons recently made to the public sector by president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the government.

However, the president has emphasized that all appointments have been made after careful scrutiny of loyalty to the nation, qualifications and background of these individuals so that policies of the government can move forward in a successful manner.

All these appointments were made with the utmost consideration of our country’s sovereignty, national security and implementation of “Saubhagyaye Dakma” policy statement, The president's Media Division (PMD) said in a statement.

President Rajapaksa stressed that he has no intention of changing such appointments or to replace them with different persons in the face of pressure.

As such, the president requested everyone not to pressure him or the government to change these appointments.

He is of the view that expressing opinions against these appointments will not only make the appointees unable to carry out their duties and responsibilities properly, but will weaken the government’s process by underestimating them in the society.

Even though applications were initially called to recruit 50,000 graduates, the government later decided to recruit 60,000 on the directives of the President.

The job recipients will be directed to a leadership, skills and attitude development training programme.

The number of graduates who joined the public service yesterday stands at 50,177. Out of this, 38,760 are females. The number of employed Arts graduates is 31,172.

According to the graduate classification, 29,156 internal graduates and 20,322 external graduates have been recruited. Appointments were also given to 1,000 monks, the PMD added.

At the end of the one year training period, appointees will be employed in institutions directly related to the rural sector such as rural and estate schools, Department of Agrarian Services, Regional Irrigation Offices, Department of Wildlife, government ayurvedic hospitals, rural hospitals, dispensaries and Department of Minor Export Crops.