All over the globe, the involvement of the ICT in daily activities is increasing rapidly. The skills required to get use of, operate, administer and develop ICT based systems are also increasing in a supersonic rate. This phenomena with several others caused in creating a massive "Skills Gap" between the skills required by the industry and the skills gained by the candidates who applies for the current employment opportunities.

In every country, this has caused a severe resistance to the development and growth of the industry. Ultimately the economy is suffered and as a result the unemployment has also been increased. IT industry is one such industry which suffers heavily from this situation.

Many international organizations have introduced various skills assessment programmes which measure the suitability of potential employees to a particular job environment. Most of them have been offered by the vendors who offer various hardware and software products and services. In industry, we normally call them, "Vendor Qualifications".

Industry giants such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, RedHat and CompTia are some of such vendors who offer course curriculums for the respective technologies and tools that they offer.
MCP - Microsoft Certifies Professional, MCTS - Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, MCPD - Microsoft Certified Professional Developer, SCJP - Sun Certified Java Programmer, SCJD - Sun Certified Java Developer, CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Associate, CCNP - Cisco Certified Network Professional, RHCE - RedHat Certified Engineer and CompTia A+ IT Technician are some industry known international qualifications.

Making the Sri Lankan youth aware of these programmes and guiding them to obtain these qualifications is a need of the hour. As the entire globe is suffering from a financial crisis, even multimillion ventures tend to limit their man power to what is really essential and some non-skilled and less-qualified staff will find it difficult to stay in the company and also to find an alternative job opportunity.

As we are in the "Year 2009 - The Year of IT and English", let us educate the youth in Sri Lanka and make the objectives of the year achieved successfully.

Dinesh Rodrigo-General Manager. OpenArc School of Business and Technology Ltd.