10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Hesha Withanage

17 December 2024 ·Oral question: Oral Question: Early Childhood Development Centres Registration and Monitoring (Q.45/2024)

Education
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Hon. Hesha Withanage asked for clarification on the Government’s proposed school system reforms, particularly the plan to establish one school every three kilometres. He questioned whether the existing number of pre-schools would be sufficient under such a policy and whether a similar expansion or reform plan applies to pre-schools. He also requested details on the estimated number of new schools required and whether the policy has been fully assessed.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, my second supplementary to the Hon. Minister is this. Your policy statement spoke of a major reform of the school system, which is commendable. The Hon. Prime Minister is present. There is a programme to establish one school every three kilometres — a good initiative, if achievable. Regarding pre-schools, have you discussed a similar change?

¶ 02 Based on your estimates of how many schools will be built, will the current number of pre-schools suffice, or is there a plan beyond that? If the “one school per three kilometres” concept is realized, a very large number — at least 30 to 40 thousand schools — would be needed. Will this extend to pre-schools too, or is it still an unestimated policy? A clarification on the applicability to pre-schools would be appreciated. If you can also respond on the schools issue, that would be valuable.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 17 December 2024 ·No. 1734685396083959 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
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Permalink
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Cite as: The Hon. Hesha Withanage. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 17 December 2024. No. 1734685396083959. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/18052