Sri Lanka Education Forum

 Startling Figures of the GCE O/L 2006 results ·  52500 candidates sit for GCE O/L. · 48.7% pass ·  51% fail · 21813 candidates fail all subjects (4128 from Colombo District), (3564 from Central province), 3404 (from Southern province) (2668 from Sabaragamuwa) (2277 from Uva) (2056 from North Central) (2039 from North Western) (773 from Eastern) and 704 from Northern province. · 47 schools and 40 pirivena institutes did not have a single student qualifying for the GCE A/L (9 schools in Colombo), (3 schools in Homagama), (3 schools in Jayawardenapura), (12 schools in Galle, (7 schools in Ambalangoda), (13 schools in Ratnapura) · Of the 258,975 ...

What happened to National ICT Education Drive ? As we all agree ICT Literacy is considered as one of the very important components of the Education in the 21st century. Since 1980s various attempts were made to bring computers into the school curriculum. Unfortunately only in 2004, ICT was introduced as a subject in Grade 12 (A/L) (GIT) and subject in O/L(OL-IT) in Sri Lanka. In 2005 Ministry of Education launched an ICT Literacy Drive proposing Department of Examination to conduct ICT Literacy Examination Island wide. According to this any Sri Lankan could sit for ICT Literacy Examination without any pre ...

If you thought graduate unemployment is a big problem here in Sri Lanka think again. In China, 40% of new graduates are expected to be unemployed in 2006 translating to an astounding 2.5 million new graduates without jobs. Similar rates are reported from the Philippines. We don’t have statistics for other countries but, generally, unemployment of graduates seems to be a severe problem all over the developing world. In Sri Lanka our birth rate for public university graduates seem to be just about what we can afford. In 2005/6 China and Philippines produced 3 and 5 ...

From what I have heard, the term Kuppi classes refers to group-tutoring offered in the universities by senior students to juniors. These classes may even take the place of regular classes for some students, because, as the seniors are said to advice the juniors, there is no reason to attend lectures and get the ‘same old same old’ when that ‘same old’ can be spoon-fed by senior students from their previous year’s notes. There is also the notion that these classes are ways of winning over the juniors for political purposes, explaining why seniors find time to do this. I first ...

In 1960 the private provision of school education in Sri Lanka was prohibited by the Assisted Schools and Training Colleges (Special Provisions) Act. Over 2700 privately owned but government assisted schools were taken over by government while giving special permission to 50 or so schools to be managed as unaided schools receiving no financial assistance from the government. After more than 45 years of a government monopoly today we have (a) over 10,000 state owned schools of which about 300 are popular national schools (b) 50 or so original private institutions that remain largely as bastions of Christian education and ...

Today, September 08, is World Literacy Day. According to the UNDP's definition, literacy rate is the percentage of people aged 15 and above who can, with understanding, both read and write a short, simple statement about their everyday life. In Sri Lanka we currently enjoy a literacy rate of over 96% , higher than that expected for a country with our income level. We have enjoyed high literacy rates for sometime. The question is why we have not moved much beyond basic literacy. Sri Lanka is small country with a high population density. Our natural resource endowments are grossly exaggerated. Our ...

If we care about our children: Ridding year-1 school admissions of corruption and influence by Rohan Samarajiva Tamil Version Sinhala Version 1.0 Introduction Getting a child into Year 1 of school, government or private, has become a traumatic and unpleasant event. Principals are being arrested for taking bribes, court cases are being launched, parents stand in line through the night, and children are being coached to lie about where they live. The problem which was originally concentrated in government schools, has now reached crisis proportions even in private schools, with bribes being taken on top of the already very high ...