Four Ps

August 14, 2007 (LBO) – Marketing qualifications such as those offered by the Chartered Institute of Marketing offer good opportunities for job seekers in an expanding economy like Sri Lanka, a senior marketer said. Shiraz Latiff, chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Sri Lanka Region, said that with only limited opportunities available to enter university, professions like marketing offered useful alternative opportunities.

Lack of higher educational opportunities has "created a huge shortage of highly skilled people especially in an emerging economy like Sri Lanka which is trying to integrate with the global economy," Latiff said.

Each year, 190,000 students sit for the GCE advanced level examination of whom only 18-19,000 or 10 percent become eligible to enter university, he told the institute's graduation ceremony and membership investiture.

Of those who enter university, two-thirds study in the vernacular languages and about half follow traditional vocations like medicine.

Only some 3,000 students, or less than two percent, get qualified in commercially oriented subjects and in the English language, Latiff said.

"Marketing was traditionally considered a functional respon