WUSC launched a five-year (2014 to 2019) project: Advancing Specialized Skills for Economic Transformation (ASSET) which aims to promote economic growth in Sri Lanka by supporting equitable employment in expanding trades sectors for young women and men in Northern, North Western, Eastern and Southern provinces. The project mainly works with public and private sector skills training providers who engage with relevant businesses in the four selected trades (hospitality, communications technology, construction, and automotive repair) to develop and provide training that reflects the needs of the job market, and to identify and fill job placements.

Through ASSET (Advancing Specialized Skills for Economic Transformation), the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is trying to close the gaps between the human resource needs of growing businesses in Sri Lanka and the youth who are eager to enter the workforce but lack the technical and soft skills required. ASSET is a five-year vocational training initiative, delivered in collaboration with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Skills Development and Vocational Training (MSDVT). Through this partnership, WUSC supports the national Skills Sector Development Program, which aims to create a more inclusive skills development system for the country by 2020, through improving linkages between private sector, government and training providers.

MTS was responsible for Second Tracer Study and Formative Review of the captioned project. The survey included identification of elements of successes and failures related to the implementation of the project component of high quality employment-based skill trainings in terms of retaining in the jobs, dropouts, quality and standards of the training providers and training courses etc. and to assess the graduate’s ability to use new skills, changes in their employment status and income/wages, their overall satisfaction and perceived relevance of the training programmes they attended and the economic and social situation of the trained youth. To review how far ASSET sponsorship skill trainees, match the requirements of the private sector employers needs in term of skill, knowledge, understanding, quality of work, management of work etc.