The Hon. Dewananda Suraweera
Hon. Dewananda Suraweera acknowledged Ministry efforts on special educational needs learners and school system recovery but argued that outcomes remain inadequate. He questioned the reliability of recently provided dropout data and asked what concrete measures would be taken to ensure compulsory education mechanisms meet regularly, monitor early absences, and reduce dropouts among children aged 5 to 16 under the policy in place since 1997.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, before my first supplementary, I appreciate the current Ministry’s efforts for SEN learners and to revive the schooling system. However, the answers suggest outcomes are still not sufficiently successful.
¶ 02 On compulsory education: though committees and supervision mechanisms exist, at minimum they should meet twice a month and track first-, second-, and third-day absentees. It appears the data provided were compiled in haste after my question was submitted, and are hard to accept as accurate given the scale of dropouts among 5-16-year-olds while compulsory education has been in force since 1997. What concrete steps will you take to activate these mechanisms and minimize this loss?
Provenance
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- Hansard, Tuesday, 19 May 2026 ·No. 23608 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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/lk/speeches/29155
Cite as: The Hon. Dewananda Suraweera. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 19 May 2026. No. 23608. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/29155