The Hon. (Dr.) Harini Amarasuriya - Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education
The Prime Minister responded to a question on WP/Ho/Paragoda Kithulagoda Junior School, stating that no decision has been taken to close the school, which was established on 31 July 1939. She provided annual student numbers from 2015 to 2025, showing a decline to 43 students in 2025, and noted that the School Development Society has decided to take steps to increase enrolment. She said the school is in a high flood-risk area but is not submerged due to its elevated location, though access roads can be flooded, and it currently functions as a disaster relief centre; nearby alternative schools were also identified if student transfers become necessary.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 (a)
¶ 02 (i) No.
¶ 03 (ii) That school was established on 31 July 1939.
¶ 04 (iii) Number of students by year: - 2015: 66 - 2016: 58 - 2017: 76 - 2018: 76 - 2019: 78 - 2020: 81 - 2021: 73 - 2022: 63 - 2023: 62 - 2024: 48 - 2025: 43
¶ 05 (iv) No decision has been taken to close the school.
¶ 06 If students from this school have to be referred to another school, the following alternatives are available: - WP/Ho/Paragoda Kithulagoda Junior School is 2 km from Molkawa Maha Vidyalaya in the Matugama Zone. That school operates Grades 1-13, has learning facilities up to the GCE (Advanced Level) Arts stream, and adequate physical resources. - WP/Mathu/Molkawa Maha Vidyalaya is the nearest school to WP/Ho/Paragoda Kithulagoda Junior School at a distance of 2 km. - In addition, other nearby schools are WP/Ho/Yatagampitiya Junior School (5 km) and KLT/Bulathsinhala Central College (9 km).
¶ 07 (v) Yes.
¶ 08 (vi) Paragoda Kithulagoda is identified as a high flood risk area. Although the surrounding roads, low-lying lands, and houses may be submerged during floods, the school does not submerge due to its higher ground location. However, when access roads are submerged during floods, students cannot reach the school. This school is currently functioning as a disaster relief centre in the Bulathsinhala Divisional Secretary’s Division.
¶ 09 (vii) As the total number of students remains very low, the General Assembly of the School Development Society has decided to take the necessary actions to increase student numbers.
¶ 10 (viii) No decision has been taken to close this school to date.
¶ 11 (b) Not applicable.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 19 May 2026 ·No. 23608 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/29323
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Harini Amarasuriya - Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 19 May 2026. No. 23608. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/29323