President Gotabaya Rajapaksa completes 100 days of his office as President today.
President Rajapaksa in keeping with his “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” manifesto, has taken steps to introduce a programme for achieving university admission for all students who pass the GCE Advanced Level exam.
Alongside those who are not qualified for higher education, a system has been set up to turn them into experts in various technical fields, a release from President’s Media stated.
The release stated: development of 1,000 schools as national schools are also among the programme introduced by the President for the development of education. Introducing a programme to prepare undergraduate youth for employment by the age of 20, the implementation of the Economic Improvement Programme from January 15 to provide 100,000 unemployed youth in very poor families under a task force and launching an employment program for unemployed graduates ensuring their direct contribution to the national economy are some of the steps taken by the President, the release stated.
The press release stated as regards the development of public service the President has taken steps to raise the age limit of the unemployed graduates to 45 years to apply for jobs, plans are afoot to take nursing courses and Teacher Training Courses to graduate degrees in the near future. A Task Force on Education has been set up and steps have been taken to introduce educational reforms with transparency. Drafts were prepared to create a National Defense Academy to conduct high-level National Security courses.
Action was taken to designate Heads of State institutions on the advice of a Special Advisory Committee and to display state symbol in government institutions rather than images of the president and ministers of government, and to review the salaries of heads of state institutions, to reduce the salary of SLT chairman from Rs 2 million to Rs 250,000 as part of it.
Appointment of a Committee to conduct a detailed study of MCC Agreement for recommendations, taking steps to regulate over 1,000 NGOs operating against the country, taking steps to restore the massive investment opportunities that the previous government missed, Inviting powerful states to trust and invest in Sri Lanka, commencement of royalty payments for artistes, Reduction of the tax on telephone charges by 25 percent, and reduction of VAT from 15 percent to 8 percent are some of the highlights of the President’s administration, it pointed out.
Furthermore, he directed construction of medium and other expressways.