English – Challenges and Future Goals

Challenges to achieving education goals

• Delays in sanitation and other provincial construction work due to a shortage of workers.
• Delays in recruitment to fill vacancies in the education system.
• An increasing number of students leaving school without completing 13 years of education.
• Loss of parental confidence in the school system due to unequal distribution of human and physical resources.
• Despite free education from Grade 1 to the first degree, parents must spend a high share of their income on their children's education.
• Social criticism and uncertainty about whether Sri Lanka's education process produces well-rounded, quality citizens.
• Mismatch between education and labour-market needs in agriculture, industry and services.
• Destruction of essential education infrastructure by natural disasters.

Five themes for the next five years

Quality accessBetter learning qualityGood governanceSystem resilienceSustainable planning and finance

Policy principles

• Free education for all and equal access.
• Relevance to human development and employment.
• Acceptability to all.
• Responsible citizenship.
• Sustainability and innovation.
• Lifelong education.

Education reforms and school-network development

• Develop and implement curricula for primary, junior-secondary and senior-secondary reforms, with teacher training, infrastructure and facilities for high-quality learning.
• Introduce administrative reforms in the education system in 2026.
• Expand access to nearby schools providing primary education.
• Create interactive learning environments and expand co-curricular activities in primary education.
• Use digital innovation to strengthen verbal and mathematical skills through targeted programmes.
• Strengthen the regulatory framework for achieving primary-education objectives.
• Improve literacy, numeracy, creativity and communication skills, with the facilities needed for quality primary education.
• Reorganise schools through school mapping and establish an effective, quality-assured school network.
• Develop 169 selected primary schools covering all nine provinces.
• Identify secondary schools that need improvement and assess their requirements.

General Education Modernization Project (GEMP) – PBC areas

1. Improve English-language learning outcomes.
2. Improve mathematics learning outcomes.
3. Promote digital use for learning English and mathematics.
4. School-based professional teacher development.
5. Increase the number of professionally qualified teachers.
6. Establish a national school quality-assurance system.
7. Implement the School Improvement Programme.
8. Develop human resources in academic and administrative services.
9. Sustain and further strengthen the School Health and Nutrition Programme.

Other planned programmes and goals

• Improve sanitation and digital facilities, support reform-related teacher training, and continue school grants for school-based management.
• Improve early-childhood development education.
• Promote student-centred junior and secondary education that develops intellectual ability, practical skills, healthy habits, attitudes and ethics.
• Deliver senior-secondary education through a flexible curriculum supporting innovation, life skills, practical knowledge and socialisation.
• Further protect the right to free education and prioritise free textbooks, stationery, shoes, uniforms, sanitary napkins, meals and insurance.
• Reduce inequalities in human and physical resources and rebuild confidence in schools.
• Provide structured capacity development for principals and teachers, school infrastructure and relevant higher-education facilities.
• Implement teacher training, practical-skills development and knowledge-update programmes.
• Move from an examination-centred to a student-centred education system.
• Reduce the mismatch between education and labour-market needs in agriculture, industry and services.
• Implement Clean Sri Lanka in education to build clean, green, healthy, responsible and ethical communities.
• Undertake climate-action and environmental-conservation programmes that empower future generations.
• Raise the quality of private education by strengthening its regulatory mechanism.
• Align national-level assessments with education reforms.
• Develop education-sector human resources, strengthen institutional coordination and provide professional facilities.
• Expand vocational education in production and technology, reflecting labour-market needs and global trends.
• Develop higher education to deliver high-quality, internationally competitive professional education.
• Strengthen transparency and accountability in providing school shoes, sanitary napkins, Aswesuma scholarships and benefits through the “Thilinapath” software.
• Promote schoolchildren's health and nutrition and operate the School Meal Programme in every government primary school.
• Implement student insurance, age-appropriate reproductive-health and sexuality education, and school health-promotion programmes.
• Conduct practical activities systematically in technical education and hold innovation-evaluation programmes.
• Provide NVQ qualifications and create pathways into tertiary education.
• Continue improving the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) with technical support from the Sri Lanka Air Force.