The sudden upsurge in the number of youth leaving the country for foreign employment, while serving to ease the unemployment problem in the country, nevertheless, should be viewed with consternation by the powers that be. Long queues are being witnessed at the passport office daily, of youth, waiting with eager anticipation to leave the country to better their prospects abroad according to those interviewed by TV. According to a news item quoting Immigration and Emigration Department sources, the number of daily applicants for passports had increased by as much as 50 per cent. Whereas prior to this, there had been 1,000 daily applications received by the Department, this number has now risen to 1,500. They also say that during the last 10 days 12,158 persons had obtained passports under the one-day service and 11,242 people have applied for passports under the normal service, from the Colombo Head Office alone.
The ethnic conflict saw the exodus of a large number of professionals taking their skills and talents with them to foreign climes and in turn depriving their valuable services, to the country of their birth. The achievements of some of them, that one often comes across in the media, such as in the medical, architectural, engineering and even the field of sports makes one wonder what might have been had their services been available to their Motherland. No doubt this country would have been richer and made advances in many spheres through their skillful presence.
This is why all leaders of this country have been inviting all those professionals who left our shores, for whatever reason, to come back and offer their skills and talents in the service to their Motherland, offering them all the incentives. The response to their appeals is not known, but from the look of things, the deterioration and amateurism seen around us, it is certain that these calls have had no effect.
If the country had been the loser by the massive brain drain over the years, now it looks like we are also going to lose our skilled workforce to other countries if this huge rush to obtain passports is anything to go by. Compounding the problem are the numerous attempts made by Western countries to lure our educated youth with offers of scholarships for study courses while finding them employment.
If the trend catches on, there is no knowing where this will lead to. In all probability we will be only left with an ageing population which is useless when it comes to creative thinking and innovative skills with all our young talent lured away by others. It is time for the authorities to sit back and find ways of arresting this flight of talent from our midst. What is most needed is to create the right environment and right opportunities for the talents of our youth to flourish.
Our youth population is a disgruntled lot due to the feeling that their chances for advancement are limited. The rampant corruption they see all around them, the inequality in opportunities, favouritism, abuse of power, privileged lives enjoyed by the political elite, have forced them to view things with an utter degree of cynicism. They are invested with a feeling of frustration knowing that they have no chance to advance in life under such a climate and want to break free at the first available opportunity.
The pandemic and its economic repercussions have left them with no alternative but to look elsewhere for survival. Many youth who were in the passport queues were thrown out of employment following the collapse of the economy and were desperate to find a means to keep body and soul intact.
Not just legal flight for foreign employment, there was also the incident a few weeks ago of a boat load of illegal migrants attempting to flee to a Western country by boat being rounded up by the Navy. We are bound to see similar desperate bids if urgent measures are not taken to put certain things right. The revival of the economy is priority number one and getting the stalled business back in operation, so that employment generation could be possible, getting those laid off, back to work. Merit should be recognized and should be the sole criterion of appointments. Development should be spread evenly instead of being confined to selected districts and provinces. We stress this point because most of the youth in the passport queues were those from the outstations which had been neglected over the years leaving them with no prospect of gainful employment. What is important is to make our youth not feel unwanted and left out of the scheme of things. It is this aspect that even drew our youth to take up arms and rise against the State.
The Government should also take measures to contain the present unrest where agitations have been the order of the day. This general state of chaos and disorganisation too, has left our youth with a sense of vulnerability as to the future of the country and by extension their future too.
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