The Hon. (Dr.) Harini Amarasuriya - Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, the reply is as follows.

¶ 02 1. Education shapes the world and it is essential to prepare children for future challenges. Although preschool education begins at an early age, regulation is necessary as it is not always appropriate. During the civil war, volunteer teachers were used to fill teacher shortages; many have since received permanent appointments, but others are still waiting. Although Cabinet approval was granted, due to elections and the economic crisis not all received appointments. Therefore, granting permanent appointments to them is very important.

¶ 03 In Sri Lanka, the majority of preschools are run by the private sector, and these preschools provide some payment to volunteer teachers serving there. Provincial Councils also currently pay some allowance to volunteer preschool teachers serving in selected preschools.

¶ 04 Accordingly, since most preschools operate under the private sector, there is no scope at present to grant permanent Government appointments or stable Government salaries/allowances to teachers employed in preschools run by the private sector.

¶ 05 Under current education policy, students who have completed five years of age are admitted to school for formal education. Accordingly, children aged three and four are directed to preschool education.

¶ 06 The Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs which implements this subject, is taking necessary steps to introduce preschool education reforms in 2027, reforming the existing preschool education system.

¶ 07 Under this, to standardize preschool education and guide all preschools in the country, in 2025 the National Institute of Education introduced the “National Early Childhood Education Curriculum Framework.” In addition, a teacher guide and a compendium of model activities in line with this framework are being prepared, and arrangements have been made to train all preschool teachers at provincial level teacher training programmes using the framework, teacher guide and model activity compendium.

¶ 08 To regulate and elevate Sri Lanka’s preschool education to proper standards, based on National Education Commission policy recommendations, work is planned and being implemented in 2026 to establish a National Policy for Preschool Education.

¶ 09 No provincial school was declared a national school in 2014.

¶ 10 Information regarding certain other queries is not available with the Ministry of Education at present.