Tuesday, May 29, 2012

I am 17 and am a school dropout – I don’t know what to do!


I dropped out of school after O levels and did not do well enough to go to the A level class. My school has few facilities and the teachers always left after a few terms because they did not like the conditions they found to live there and always applied for transfers. So there was NO consistent teaching and as we do not have tuition classes nearby and my parents are not able to send me to the nearest town about 2hours bus ride away for tuition on Saturdays and Sundays, I was not able to handle the exams.

In my village there is not a lot I can do, though I can get daily work every day if I want which will pay me about Rs500, so I can save enough for clothes, my mobile phone and reloads, and DVD’s of hindi and tamil movies, if I live at home and my parents provide me with food.

I realize that is not a future for me, to be able to find a good steady income, so I can get married build a house and raise a family, which I believe is the basic ambition of every one on earth. I know my country is beautiful. I wish to live here, I do not even wish to go overseas, but I would like to fulfill my goals in this country.

I am prepared to go away to learn a skill and if I must live permanently away from my home village where my parents and many family members live, After all this is the only place I know, and so going away to the a town to get a training or job is OK, but I would like to return home to live one day if that is possible.

My parents are not of a sufficient knowledge to know what possibilities are available for me, but I have been told that first before I go into training, I must see what it is they lead to and what kind of employment I can get from that. I should then see if that is something I really would like to do and then go to that training with a desire to excel to get the job I want. I know people who are better off now in their 20’s who have never had a job, but have qualifications filling up books, because their parents have been able to afford the courses, but they do not have jobs!

So with all those qualifications if they are at home, what hope do I have with no qualifications to get a job? So what do you advise me to do?
(An approximate translation of a conversation in Sinhala to make the point on the dilemma this young man is facing in 2012 Sri Lanka)

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