EDEX celebrates 17th year in education guidance venture
A group of dedicated past Royal College students has worked hard for the past 16 years to empower the youth of Sri Lanka to be globally competitive and to make a ‘difference’ in guiding them to select their future career path.
The venture has been very successful, declared Mahinda Galagedara, Chairman EDEX, speaking at a media briefing held this week at the Royal College Union (RCU) Auditorium, Colombo to announce the celebrations of 17 years of Excellence in Education and Career Guidance (EDEX) and the holding of the EDEX Expo 2020 at the BMICH, Colombo from January 17-19 and January 24-25 at the Kandy City Centre.
Youth today are considered many things in society, from being trend-setters to global voices in harmony for a plethora of societal causes, he mentioned. He pointed out that they are the future custodians of the drive to ensure sustainability and take on the emerging challenges of digitalisation in an emerging global trend which is now termed as the 4th industrial revolution.
Thus, he indicated that they have a collective responsibility to empower the youth with education, skills development and training. The best and the foremost way to strengthen them is to provide them education and life skills, Mr. Galagedara pointed out.
He said that EDEX has now become a household name when deciding the next step of the students in higher education and career choices.
In his introductory remarks, Mr. Galagedara elaborated how EDEX has made a ‘difference’ other than guiding the students of the next step in higher education and career guidance. He said that to date they have been offering scholarships for 2,300 poor children in their education from primary to university studies spending Rs. 832,455 per month.
Under ‘EDEX Think Green’, an initiative has been launched to educate, activate and engage youth towards sustainable living and focus to educate the EDEX Expo visitors on the sustainable development goals. Plants are to be distributed for Grade I students on their first day in the school.
He said that waste segregation and recycling, mobile waste and electronic waste awareness and disposal initiative would be carried out at the exhibition, while steps have been taken to start biogas and rainwater harvesting projects.
EDEX Expo 2020 sets a platform for local and global convergence of key post-secondary educational stakeholders, comprising over 200 education exhibition booths, representing local and foreign universities and institutes from over 20 countries.
The international presence will be enhanced with the participation of a number of reputed country pavilions from Japan, France, India, Australia and Pakistan. Direct or local representatives from leading universities in the UK, Russia, Canada and Switzerland will also be present.
The EDEX Job Fair creates a conduit between job providers and seekers and there would be stalls manned by reputed and leading corporates representing many important segments in the economy. Job seekers are invited to upload their CVs to edexcareers.lk.