Discrimination and Social Exclusion of Youth in Sri Lanka
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social backgrounds, indicating that women from disadvantaged backgrounds have more constraints in accessing higher education (Jayaweera and Shanmugam 2002). However, the largest numbers of unemployed are among liberal arts and law graduates, and unemployment among women with A-level qualifications and above is 16.5 percent, compared with 7.7 percent among men with a similar level of educational attainment (Gunawardena 2003, DCS 2006). Thus, the problem is far more complex than a simple mismatch between education and employment. Disparities in the provision of secondary education, resulting in disparities in the types of educational skills that are being learned, appear to have an adverse effect on the employability of youth, particularly rural women. The disparities in educational attainment become all the more stark when considering regional and sectoral educational attainment levels rather than national averages. For instance, while the national literacy rates are over 90 percent, female literacy in the estate sector is 74.7 percent and male literacy is 88.3 percent. Literacy rates in Eastern, Uva, and Central provinces are also below 90 percent; the highest rate is in Western Province. Eastern Province is a conflict-affected area, while both Uva and Central provinces consist of large estate sector populations. Western Province is the most urbanized as well as the wealthiest province, accounting for almost half of the country’s gross domestic product. Research has also shown that interdistrict disparities are increasing in Sri Lanka, while a recent study by the Asian Development Bank (2007) shows rapid increases in income inequality over the past two or three decades. Inequality can be measured not only in terms of income and expenditure but also in terms of access to services and the quality of services that are available to the population. Unequal educational opportunities obviously skew the employability of youth in favor of those who have access to educational institutions and other facilities with better resources. It is also clear that when policymakers and others talk of the aspirations of “highly� educated youth, they are talking primarily about youth who are either O (ordinary)-level or A-level qualified. Considering that these are youth who have completed between 11 and 13 years of school, this level of schooling constitutes what many would consider a basic level of education. While it is important to look at the quality of education, it is also necessary to look at the kind of opportunities that exist in the labor market that match the reasonable aspirations of youth with a basic secondary education and to examine ways to diversify the opportunities in the labor market rather than to blame youth for having high aspirations.