Govt. to set up Regulatory Authority for private schools

Sri Lanka International and Private School Regulatory Authority (IPSRA) is to be established soon to regulate and monitor the functions as well as improve the standard, eliminate shortcomings and irregularities of the country’s private schools numbering 392 with over 127,968 students, Education Ministry sources said.

This proposal has been made some-time back and it has not been considered up now owing to the pressure of interested parties and the heads of management of these schools, a senior Education Ministry official disclosed.

He noted that the National Education Commission has called for financial and administration information and operational details with educational particulars of staff etc from the management of these schools in January this year to devise relevant regulations but their response was very poor.

Only 70 private schools out of 392 responded to the questionnaire sent to them and the Education Ministry has also requested the financial statements of these schools on the directions of the Finance Ministry, he added.  

Further the Education Ministry has issued a gazette notification making the teaching the subjects of the mother language, religion and history compulsory in private schools in 2013 but so far no proper investigation evaluation and monitoring on the adherence to this regulation has not been made by education authorities.

The reason for this was the lack of legal regulatory power for the Education Ministry to monitor and regulate the activities of private schools, he revealed. (Bandula)