The Hon. (Dr.) V.S. Radhakrishnan

¶ 01 Hon. Chairman, I move: “That a sum of Rs. 10 be cut from the Recurrent and Capital Expenditures of each Programme, as per the tradition, out of the Heads of Expenditure Nos. 126, 212 to 215 and 335 pertaining to the Ministry and other departments and institutions coming under it and scheduled to be taken up for discussion today, Monday, 10th March, 2025, at the Committee Stage Discussion of Appropriation Bill, 2025.”

¶ 02 I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the opportunity to open the debate on the Ministry of Education, one of the most important ministries.

¶ 03 Sri Lankans today are renowned worldwide as scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, professors, teachers and professionals, reflecting the development of our education sector. From early times, many intellectuals have served this country, enabled by our policy of free education introduced by Dr. C.W.W. Kannangara, to whom we express gratitude. Many of us here, myself included, benefitted from this.

¶ 04 Free education had two key aims: first, to enable all naturally talented children to study and rise in society; second, irrespective of differences and without regard to parental wealth, to provide free education to every child born in Sri Lanka. This led to the emergence of scholars, intellectuals, professionals and entrepreneurs. By the end of his tenure, 54 Central Colleges had been established. Sadly, he was later defeated by the people of Horana. His successor A.T. Nawala also rendered great service, establishing 50 Central Colleges.

¶ 05 We cannot forget Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s contributions as Minister of Education. During his tenure, distance-based English teacher training (“DERC”) was introduced; full-time teacher training, school midday meals, the Mihintale Institute of Aesthetics, non-formal education expansion, extending teachers’ retirement age to 60, establishing teacher training colleges for bhikkus, student counseling, district-level advisory services for teacher appointments, and the Teacher Training College system were introduced, with nine colleges started in 1988—now increased to 20. Under President Ranasinghe Premadasa, free uniforms, shoes and textbooks were provided to students. Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the 1,000 “Mahindodaya” laboratories were established, and E-Tech/B-Tech streams introduced.

¶ 06 Today, Sri Lanka has 10,096 schools: 396 National Schools and about 9,700 Provincial Schools. Language-wise, there are 6,247 Sinhala-medium and 3,011 Tamil-medium schools. Student population: 3,882,688; teachers: 225,216; principals: 12,571; teacher training colleges: 20.