Unemployed graduates demand immediate filling of govt. vacancies with them

November 6, 2011, 10:43 pm

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Unemployed graduates who had been waiting for nearly a decade for jobs, yesterday, demanded that the government fill the remaining vacancies in the public sector with them immediately.

Media Spokesman of the Combined Association of Unemployed Graduates (CAUG) Dhammika Munasinghe told The Island that they would launch a countrywide poster campaign from today (07) to make people aware as the first stage of their agitation.

"We will stage protests in each province as the second step of the campaign," he said adding that the first three protests would be held in Southern, Central and North Western provinces which were the provinces with most unemployed graduates.

The UPFA government, which came to power in 2004, provided 42,000 jobs for graduates under the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Munasinghe said.

He said that there were about 5,000 unemployed graduates in the country when incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa took over. Over the past six years, the number of unemployed graduates had since risen to 40,000.

"President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s mandate ‘Mahinda Chinthanaya’ promised 10,000 jobs for graduates, but he did not honour the promise still," Munasinghe claimed.

According to him, the Rajapaksa government also promised 8,000 jobs in the 2007 budget and 15,000 jobs in the 2008 budget. But the government has broken all such promises.

By the 2009 budget, he said, the government promised 17,500 jobs for graduates and it planned to recruit 14,500 as Jana Sabha Secretaries and 3177 as aesthetic teachers.

"But the government is yet to recruit graduates as Jana Sabha Secretaries," Munasinghe said adding but those who had external degrees had not received aesthetic teacher appointments even after being interviewed.

"The government completely forgot the issue in 2010 and 2011 budgets.

Their members are seeking a solution from this budget as there are over 19,000 state sector vacancies remaining to be filled at present", he said.