NATIONAL LIBRARY AND DOCUMENTATION SERVICES BOARD
NATIONAL LIBRARY AND DOCUMENTATION SERVICES BOARD
Professor Nanda Dharmaratna, the newly appointed Chairman of the National Library and Documentation Services Board, assumed duties this morning (10th February, 2022). The Maha Sangha, officials from the Ministry of Education, officials from the National Library of Sri Lanka, National Library board members and LIS professionals also attended the occasion.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an economic crisis leading to a decrease in available jobs worldwide. Sri Lanka is no exception. As per Department of Census and Statistics data, Sri Lankas unemployment rate in 2020 was 5.5 percent. Deeply worrying is that unemployment rates for women were twice as high as those for men, 8.5% and 4.0% respectively, and more than half of all unemployed people were age 15-24 years.
In Sri Lanka, a discrepancy between the skills employers seek and the skills that individuals posess continues to be an issue among educated young people. In response, the National Library of Sri Lanka (NLSL) decided to invest in education and training programmes to reskill and upskill job seekers entering the workforce.
In June 2020, the NLSL formed a partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) – Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative (CWRI) and started the programme “Skills Online Sri Lanka Programme (SOSLP) – Employed for the Unemployed”.
