Ed. Minister unwilling to close schools for a long period
View(s):This week Education Minister Susil Premajayantha told Parliament he was not willing to close schools for a prolonged period and warned that upcoming school holiday periods will be reduced.
He said Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis since Independence with fuel shortages, transportation problems and soaring prices affecting the students and their education.
He said the prime objective as a Government is to find more sustainable solutions for school children and university students who are the future of the country.
Minister Dullas Alahapperuma proposed to appoint a special committee to resolve the educational issues of children.
Minister Premajayantha said the education of children was affected seriously as a result of the socio-political downfall of the country following the Easter Sunday attacks, the COVID pandemic and the economic crisis. He said even pre-school children had become victims of the crisis as literacy and numeracy are two key areas they had lost due to the present situation.
“Even though we were able to cover the syllabuses, children have missed out on engaging in sports activities, debates, and other extracurricular activities, which provide a platform for reinforcing the lessons learned in the classrooms, and offer students the opportunity to apply academic skills in a real-world context, and are thus considered part of education,” he said.
In recent times it was advised to start and continue the regional schools with a lower number of students since transport difficulties were not affecting the students, teachers and principals of those schools, he added.
He said the problems parents, schoolchildren, teachers and school transport operators faced were aggravated with the prolonged fuel crisis. He said public transport would be restructured soon as a solution.
He said this year, out of 194 school days, school children in the Western Province had lost 100 school days. In the other provinces, school children had lost 77 days of education.
He said in 2021, students in the Western Province had missed out on 127 school days out of 229 and in other areas, students had missed around 86 school days.
The minister also said it was reported that the attendance of students and teachers in rural schools was 70% – 80% except in the main cities in the island.
“It is in this context that we need to address the issue without further hindering the education of children. As the Education Minister, I thoroughly believe we do not intend to reduce the number of school days,” he said.
Speaking further he admired the voluntary service in conducting online classes by teachers and principals during the pandemic period.
Steps had also been taken to use US$ 65 million from a US$ one billion credit line from India for the printing of textbooks, examination papers and other printing material.
Separate TV channels that broadcast education programmes for grade one to grade 13 and Montessori classes were available from channel 122- 129 on Dialog TV, in Sinhala and Tamil. ‘Nenasa’, ‘E-Thaksalawa’ and ‘Dp education’ were among those introduced to facilitate students while conducting online classes.
However the coming holidays might get shortened and the days of conducting schools might increase whereby all missed learning periods would be covered. Additional programmes such as revision sessions and training sessions for A/L teachers would also be conducted with the assistance of university lecturers.
The Sri Lankan education system was going to go through a radical change by implementing educational reforms from countries such as Finland and Singapore.
The minister made this observation while answering several questions raised by Parliamentarians Samanpriya Herath, Weerasumana Weerasinghe and Priyamanath C. Dolawatta.
HitAd.lk is the best and biggest mobile phone market in Sri Lanka, and we guarantee you will find what you need here from our extensive listing of mobile phones for sale in Sri Lanka. Whether it’s a budget-priced smartphone for communication, or higher end features with advanced connectivity, there are many different options from which to choose from on our site!