Sri Lanka's education system: An analysis of recent statistics
At Impact Learning, the NGO my partner and I are in the process of incorporating, we have been discussing national education statistics, which pushed me to examine the status of education in the country. The following post is derived from that research and will be part of a larger series of musings on education.
Source: Annual_School_Census_SummaryReport_2023.pdf
According to the above statistics regarding schools in Sri Lanka[1], there are 10,096 government schools (preferred by some of the middle-income groups and most of the lower-income groups given they are free under the free education system)[2]. Of these, 9,700 are provincial schools, potentially with lower access to resources.
Sinhala-medium schools (6247) outnumber Tamil-medium schools (3,011) while schools offering both mediums fall far short (39). More schools offer bilingual education (Sinhala and English or Tamil and English) than the Sinhala-Tamil combination. Is this increasing segregation among communities? Especially since Sinhala speakers struggle to learn Tamil whereas Tamil students and adults know at least some Sinhala given that the latter is used throughout the country. This fact is borne out by the 2,827,538 Sinhala-speaking students compared to the 934,579 Tamil-speaking students.
Teaching staff is always a contentious issue (with teachers being sent to rural areas with their first posting and some opting not to serve in these areas or providing fewer committed hours according to anecdotal evidence). In the most recent survey, the country had 237,787 teachers to 3,882,688 students, a ratio of less than 1:16. However, the reality is not that rosy. While rural areas may have one teacher for a small number of students (sometimes even 1 or 2), many schools in urban areas, especially in Colombo, have one teacher for 35 or 40 students[3]. This severely impacts the attention a teacher can provide to each student.
As is to be expected, female teachers (175,695) far outnumber male teachers (49,521). Cultural realities can be at play here, with many women and their families seeing teaching as the ideal occupation for women; reasons include the work hours (many female teachers prize being able to come home after 2 pm in time for their own familial duties) and the aspect of teaching as a service.
In keeping with the gender statistics of the country, a marginally higher number of female students are enrolled (1,959,097) than male students (1,923,591). However, recent Grade 1 admissions show a slight change with male students at 146,314 and female students at 141,325.
Source: Annual_School_Census_SummaryReport_2023.pdf
Even though some numbers showed a disparity between the Statistical Bulletin on Education-2022 prepared by the National Human Resources Development Council of Sri Lanka (under the Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government) and the Annual School Census of Sri Lanka by the Statistics Branch of Ministry of Education of Sri Lanka, the ratio of teachers to students is corroborated with nuance.
However, if the “Statistical Bulletin” is to be believed, the number of admissions to Grade 1 in 2022 was nearly 20,000 higher than in 2023.
Source: stat-bulletine-on-edu-2022-for-web_compressed.pdf
Why are we looking at these statistics? We are effectively looking to understand the gap between the provision of and access to education. We are interested in bridging at least part of that gap via early childhood development education. But also, we are interested in the realities of education provision. We believe that understanding these will help us plan our education material and identify who is falling through the cracks.
One of the main problems I identified in doing this research is the disparity in numbers. This stops us from getting the full picture. However, it is not an insurmountable issue. Sadly, a somewhat more insurmountable issue than that is the absence of a different layer of information (which we require) in this dataset. That is information about the availability of support systems (other than nutrition). My partner is concerned about what support systems exist for those at the margins (for example domestic and migrant workers’ children). Do they receive daycare services from the government (or any other subsidized care)? Are there any initiatives for those at the poverty line?
That led me to the Census of Children in Child Care Institutions 2019[4]. This report addresses institutionalization, the option available to citizens if no family exists to care for children. (Interestingly, a need for institutionalization resulted in the formulation of the National Alternative Care Policy, and it is heartening to know that government officials are paying attention to all facets of childhood security). Even though the information below is enlightening, the report itself was not what we were looking for.
Source: Census of Children in Child Care Institutions 2019
A question we had been pondering was how parents at the margins were balancing children’s safety needs and education needs. Were they being taken to places of work or were they being made to work? The Child Activity Survey 2016 by the Department of Census and Statistics (Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs) shone a light on the economic activity of children in their schooling years.
Source: Child Activity Survey 2016
In 2016, 2.3% of school-aged children were engaged in economic activity (down from 2008/2009)[5]. These are presumably due to dire household situations. But that also means that some children are made to become adults too soon. While this will give some skills training, how are they affected by the experience? Also, do they attend school full-time or only a few days a week? These questions are harder to answer but I believe we will be approaching this question in our work in the coming years.
The information in these many reports has given us much to think about and I look forward to parsing and analysing in future posts too.
In thinking about the larger problems that concern us, we are also looking at the systems elsewhere in the world and invite you to write in if you know of such. We would love to know what we can draw from for this country.
If you would like to know more about the work we are embarking on, please follow us on Instagram.
[1] Annual_School_Census_SummaryReport_2023.pdf
[2] These numbers are not corroborated by the report “Statistical Bulletin on Education -2022” by the National Human Resources Development Council of Sri Lanka, available at stat-bulletine-on-edu-2022-for-web_compressed.pdf. This shows the difficulty of getting accurate information in this country. However, it may also be the aftereffects of the pandemic that led to permanent shutting of some schools.
[3] Personal experience
[4] “Carried out by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) for the Department of Probation and Child Care Services with the financial assistance from UNICEF Sri Lanka.”
[5] Child Activity Survey 2016 p. xxiii