Learning in Context: Challenges and Opportunities for Learning and Development in Sri Lanka
Learning and Development (L&D) is no longer a space of its own but rather it is affected by different factors including culture, regulations, labor market trends, languages, infrastructure and maturity of various sectors. These factors vary considerably in Sri Lanka in the export-oriented manufacturing (such as clothing) industry, finance, government, hospitality, and the increasingly popular IT-BPM sector. Programs exported to other parts of the world usually fail due to the assumptions based on the number of people who have access to the internet, the learners being similar, and the teams working equally. To improve the efficiency of training, it is worth adapting the content to the local environment with the help of case studies, Sinhalese or Tamil materials, job-related tasks, and examples of the real working situations in Sri Lanka. Such strategy makes the training more relevant and the transfer of skills more efficient with the help of better motivation and sel...