Vocational and Technical Training Minister Piyasena Gamage said that a number of technical courses for young men and women in the Matale district would commence shortly and large number of unemployed youths would be able to secure well-paid employment either in government or in the private sector.

He pointed out that the rapid proliferation of technical education and training across the country would be a sign of opulence because statistics had shown that only three per cent of student population would enter universities for higher education. The future responsibility would lie on vocational training and technical education in any country.

Minister Gamage added that Matale was a historic town and successive governments had paid attention to develop it .

He said that for the benefit of rural youth, a career guidance programme would be introduced because no jobs could be found through the traditional system of education or degrees. It was true that a person with 6-months computer training would be able to find a job easily and the Vocational Training Ministry never expected government funds to operate because the Ministry was being funded by a number of foreign countries.

Urban Development Minister Rohana Dissanayaka said that the Present President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as former labour Minister, had established the Matale technical college in 1996. Today the college had blossomed into a fully-fledged technical college which was capable of training unemployed young men and women for different types of jobs.