Ceylinco Life donates 82nd & 83rd classroom buildings to schools in Elpitiya and Kegalle

Year 5 students in two schools located in Elpitiya and Kegalle will walk into new purpose-built classrooms when schools reopen in the new year thanks to Ceylinco Life, which donated its 82^nd and 83^rd classrooms to these schools recently under one of the company’s flagship community initiatives.

The beneficiary schools are Sri Dhammajothi Primary School, Helamada, Kegalle, and G/Thanabaddegama Anagarika Dharmapala School, Elpitiya. These building projects were coordinated by the Warakapola and Elpitiya branches of the life insurance leader, respectively, the company said in a media release.  

The construction of both classrooms began in January 2020, was completed in July and August and the buildings were formally handed over to the schools in December 2020 despite the pandemic, the company said.

While both schools educate students from Grade 1 to the GCE Ordinary Level, Sri Dhammajothi Primary School has 169 students and 19 teachers. Classes are predominantly conducted in a large hall shared by all. The Thanabaddegama Anagarika Dharmapala School has 280 students and 18 teachers. Students in this school resort to learning in the garden area as they too have only one shared classroom.

The schools stated that the donation of a new classroom will significantly increase the ability of the Grade 5 Scholarship Exam level students to focus on their studies. Since most of these students do not have access to tuition classes and depend solely on their schools for education, the exclusive classrooms are of much value, they said.

Ceylinco Life’s 81^st classroom donation that took place in December 2019 benefited Grade 1 students of the Mahakalupahana Junior School in Matugama. The company built and donated classroom buildings to 12 needy schools in 2018-19 under this programme begun 16 years ago. Every classroom built over the years continues to be monitored by the company to ensure it serves many generations of students, and Ceylinco Life returned to 38 of them in 2018 to undertake re-painting and repairs, even as it continued to identify more schools for buildings to be built in the years ahead.