Features

A JOURNEY THROUGH SRI LANKA’S NIGHT

Published

3 years ago

2022/10/23

Thilina Walpola

by Razeen Sally

Our life is a journey
Through winter and night
We look for our way
In a sky without light

Louis-Ferdinand Céline,Journey to the End of the Night

I had watched Sri Lanka’s latest catastrophe unfold from the safety and comfort of Singapore, not having been to the country for two years due to the pandemic. But I felt this catastrophe personally. I am half Sri Lankan. Colombo is my hometown, where I spent most of my childhood. After an almost three-decade absence, I returned to Sri Lanka in my forties and spent a decade travelling its length and breadth to write a travel memoir. From 2015 to 2018, I was an economic-policy adviser to the government.

I arrived at Katunayake airport in late April. A score of porters stood idle around luggage conveyor belts – one sign of chronic overstaffing in Sri Lanka’s public sector. Once on the Southern Expressway, there were striking differences from pre-pandemic times: roadside billboards were naked, reduced to their iron frames, denuded of advertising; shops and small tourist hotels and eateries were shuttered and boarded up.

Galle was front and centre in the post-2009 tourist boom, heaving with visitors all year round, with a transformative facelift of its crumbling buildings and soaring property prices. But now I saw hardly any foreign tourists, just a Colombo crowd down for the weekend.On May 9, the government imposed a nationwide curfew. In Colombo, there had been violence between Rajapaksa supporters and protestors demanding the resignation of Gotabaya, Mahinda and the rest of the government. Mahinda resigned that afternoon. That night mobs burnt down homes belonging to the Rajapaksa clan and other Rajapaksa-supporting politicians.

Armed with a tourist permit to avoid the continuing curfew, my driver Nihal and I, accompanied by Indian friends visiting from Singapore, drove from Galle to Tissamaharama. The coast road was predictably quiet. Most shops were shut, and the odd police or army checkpoint waved us through. Just out of Tangalle, the scenery changed suddenly from the deep dark green of the wet zone to the dry zone’s wider spaces and bigger skies, more economical vegetation, a paler shade of green and fewer people.

On my previous visits, Tangalle and Hambantota were plastered with posters and billboards of the Rajapaksa brothers and Mahinda’s son Namal. This time none were to be seen. A police and army cordon protected Carlton House, the family’s home in Tangalle. Right opposite, lying by the main road, was the toppled statue of D.A. Rajapaksa, Gota’s and Mahinda’s father and founder of the dynasty, a victim of anti-Rajapaksa retribution on May 9.

Initially we were the only guests at our hotel in Tissamaharama. Priyantha, a boat operator on Tissawewa, complained of hard times: no tourists, no diesel for his boat, his children’s school without new textbooks due to a paper shortage, skyrocketing prices for everything. Nearby Kataragama, normally jam-packed with worshippers from all over the island and lots of tourists, was eerily quiet.

From the south coast, Nihal and I drove to Kandy. The Kandy road seemed to be a never-ending stretch of cars, lorries, motorbikes and three-wheelers queueing for petrol and diesel, often sprouting subsidiary branches snaking down side roads. Many stations had run out of fuel; vehicles were parked in queues overnight, their drivers hoping to get fuel the following morning. This day, May 16, was Vesak. But this was the most subdued Vesak I had seen: just a few lanterns here and there, no pandals, and much less food at threadbare roadside stalls.

The following day I walked around a down-at-heel Kandy. The handful of tourists I saw were young backpackers. The Suisse and Queens, Kandy’s venerable colonial hotels, looked even more faded than they did before the pandemic, in dire need of renovation. I popped into a sepulchral Suisse for tea, seemingly the only guest that afternoon. Opposite Queens, bordering the Tooth Temple, several tourist shops and a hotel had closed down.

Back at my hotel, one of the managers told me his family were now drinking tea without milk and not eating chicken to cut down on expenses – a symptom of hyperinflation immiserating the middle class. He said poorer folk in his village were down to one meal a day. Parents were giving up meals to feed their children. Many – all day labourers in the informal economy – had lost their jobs. On my last day in Kandy I spent a couple of late-afternoon hours with Ruwan, one of the founders of the Aragalaya protests in Kandy. We met close to the small group of protesters settled in by the central roundabout and clock tower.

Ruwan, in his late twenties, with unkempt black hair and a straggly brown goatee, had an earnest sincerity and practical idealism I found immediately attractive. He spoke in intelligible, though sometimes halting, English. He was a village boy who got top A-level grades and went to the University of Peradeniya. After graduation and a Colombo internship, he ran a small advertising business from his village home, where he looked after his widowed father. He remained a villager at heart, rejecting the noise, dirt and money-driven rat race that, he thought, poisoned human relations in Colombo. He took his Buddhist philosophy and meditation seriously: a simple, focused, present-in-the-moment life was his Buddhist ideal.

Ruwan told me of his entrepreneurial plans: marketing organic agricultural products from his village; a bike-sharing scheme in Kandy that had won him a nationwide competition. And of his myriad other pursuits: singing in a Sinhala folk-rock band, for which he composed songs with social and environmental commentary; a few screenplays for teledramas; and a novel he was writing on three generations of a family of Kandyan dancers, drawing on his own family and village experience. A visit to the Aragalaya protests in Colombo convinced him to start something similar with a group of friends in Kandy. He was hopeful the movement would bring about real change – “maybe 40 per cent if not 100 per cent”. And determined, unlike so many of his university contemporaries, not to emigrate but to stay in his homeland and do his bit.

Ruwan’s simple life-philosophy, his idealism and engagement, and his varied talents, reminded me how much potential there was in Sri Lanka’s heartlands. But it had long been quashed by the country’s entrenched elite and its noxious politics. And depleted by decades of emigration to faraway places with more opportunities than obstacles – emigration is accelerating fast in the present crisis.

From Kandy I went to the high tea country for a week. The winding, climbing road to Nuwara Eliya was practically deserted, free of the usual traffic of local and foreign tourists, but, alas, still scarred by the billboards that uglify landscapes along Sri Lanka’s main roads. And from Nuwara Eliya we drove to the Uva hills, where my father was born and grew up, and where I spent childhood holidays on a little tea estate.

The petrol queues were nearly as long as they were on the Colombo-Kandy road. Wherever I went I heard the same complaints about fuel, cooking-gas and milk-powder shortages, and prices of eggs, meat, fish and vegetables going through the roof. But life in these mostly rural areas did not seem quite as desperate as it was in the cities and big towns, at least for those who tilled their own land: Sinhala villagers had their paddy fields, orchards, cows and hens to fall back on; and Tamil estate workers assiduously cultivated large, neat vegetable plots next to often straggly tea bushes, rusting tea factories and the cramped, cheek-by-jowl line-rooms they lived in. Most had ready access to firewood for cooking. But even they were anxious about the fertiliser shortage that endangered the next harvest.

I arrived in Colombo after over a month outstation. How different it looked from my last visit in February 2020: so many shops and offices closed – on a Monday afternoon; half the population seemingly queueing for fuel and kerosene; multi-storey hotels, malls and condos on and just off the Galle Road, now hulking eyesores with construction suspended due to lack of finance and concrete. At one end of Galle Face Green, right next to the Aragalaya protest site, Port City lay idle, as it had done since early 2020 when its Chinese workers were whisked back to their homeland. And I saw beggars in numbers I had not seen since my childhood in the 1970s: often wizened men and women with destitution and hopelessness written in their downcast eyes.

Conversations with old friends and acquaintances were almost uniformly depressing. Corruption was endemic: grand larceny at the top and everyday petty graft at the bottom. Hyperinflation, food and fuel shortages and power cuts made daily life a wasteful, exhausting grind. Burglary was on the rise; the poor were getting desperate. Many bemoaned a galloping brain drain. Local companies were haemorrhaging professional staff who were probably leaving the country for good. But the Colombo rich were still OK, filling their favourite clubs, hotel bars and restaurants and upscale malls most evenings.

On a clear, balmy Sunday night I paid my first visit to the Aragalaya protest site, passing crowds of all ages promenading on Galle Face Green, enjoying the post-sunset Indian Ocean breeze. The Aragalaya cluster of tents, stalls and raised wooden stages started right in front of the Shangri La hotel, mall and condo complex, an in-your-face contrast between an elite in glass-encased airconditioned luxury and a suffering majority outside. A flag-bedecked “Love Stage” obscured a roadside view of the statue of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. Big white boards attached to a fence were filled with protest scrawls in Sinhala, English and, very occasionally, Tamil. One board displayed mugshots of all the Rajapaksa clan involved in politics. I passed a small tent with a makeshift “art gallery”, and a much larger one housing a well-frequented lending library.

One raised stage had a twenty-something man pumping his fist and shouting a slogan about Rajapaksa “robbers” repetitively, punctuated by an equally young woman singing the refrain, to the rhythmic beat of drums and cymbals. On another stage a university student, to emphasise communal unity, shouted Sinhala Ape … Damila Ape … Muslim Ape … Lanka Ape. The crowds were overwhelmingly young and Sinhala, but with Muslims and a few Tamils mixed in, even including the odd head-shaven, saffron-robed Buddhist monk and white-cassocked Catholic priest.

As I walked by one tent, my gaze turned towards a young man in a wheelchair, clad in a banian and sarong and with dishevelled hair. He made direct eye contact and beckoned me over, addressing me in Sinhala, his speech a little slurred. He took firm hold of my hand with his good hand – the other arm was skeletal, ending in a stump just below the elbow – placed it on the back of his scalp to one side, and ran it across and down to his forehead. It felt ridge-like and lumpy. These were bullet wounds, he said. He pointed to a bullet wound under one eyebrow. The eye below was clearly disfigured. A scar crossed his Adam’s apple – another bullet wound. Then he raised himself using a long crutch, lifted his sarong and showed me a broad gash running down the side of his lame leg – more bullet wounds. He told me he was hit by an LTTE sniper on Nandikidal lagoon, only two months after he got engaged. He spent over a year in a coma and the next five in hospitals undergoing surgeries and rehabilitation. Now he lived on a war veteran’s disability pension, unable to work. And never married.

As we chatted, other disabled veterans gathered round. Two had leg prosthetics, victims of landmines from battles in the Jaffna peninsula. They had all been here, in their disabled war veterans’ tent, since the first day of the protests. It was now Day 58. I found it difficult to keep up with their fast village Sinhala, but “system change”, oft repeated in English, was easy enough to understand.

My last trip outstation was to Jaffna. The scenery changed dramatically once we passed Vavuniya and entered the Vanni, becoming flat, arid, almost airless scrub jungle under an enormous sky and immensely distant horizons. We passed Kilinochchi. On my first visit, over a decade earlier, it was practically deserted, full of empty spaces where the LTTE’s buildings, parade ground and giant cemetery for its fallen soldiers had been razed to the ground by the victorious Sri Lankan army. Now it looked transformed. The smooth A9, heavily potholed a decade ago, expanded to four lanes through a town centre packed with gleaming white shops and showrooms.

The scenery changed again as we approached the causeway at Pooneryn. Parched brown scrub jungle gave way to a shallow expanse of glistening water and, entering the Jaffna peninsula, groves of black-brown palmyrahs, paddy fields and vegetable plots.

We entered Jaffna town, also busier and noisier than I had seen it before. There were new shops and eating houses, hotels and guest houses, reception halls, Hindu temples which looked like money had recently been lavished on them, and more cars and motorbikes replacing the ubiquitous bicycles I had seen on my first visit just over a decade earlier. Battered Austin Cambridges and Morris Oxfords from the 1950s and ‘60s, kept running during the lean war years, were then a familiar sight. Now I saw just one lonesome Austin Cambridge parked in a garage. In town and around the peninsula, ancestral homes that had been destroyed or lay derelict during the war had been rebuilt or renovated by their owners in Colombo and abroad. A new Indian Cultural Centre, built by the Indian government, was now the tallest building in town. But some sights and smells had not changed: plastic and other rubbish strewn on roadsides; the stench of open drains; roaming packs of stray dogs. And maddeningly dangerous driving: motorbikes, three wheelers and bicycles kept shooting out of side roads and sped across the main road.

On previous visits I had heard much about Jaffna’s post-war problems: grievances against the army and the government in Colombo; caste divisions; and disaffected youth freely spending money sent by relatives in the diaspora, indulging in drink and drugs, or whose only ambition was to emigrate. None of that had gone away. But Jaffna, like Kilinochchi, clearly had a post-war bounce. It was up and doing again, partially reviving its pre-war reputation for industriousness, alongside thrift and a thirst for education.

Selvi, introduced to me by a Colombo friend, embodied what I thought were the best Jaffna qualities. In her mid-twenties, short and bespectacled, she came to see me sprucely turned out in her Sunday best of long blouse and pants, her long raven hair brushed straight back. Her English was good. She had a mind of her own and exuded confidence.

There was tragedy in the family. Selvi’s father, a contractor, had an accident; his operation went wrong and he died after four months in hospital. A few months later, her adored younger brother, just nineteen, whose ambition was to become a pilot, committed suicide. She was left alone to support her traumatised mother.

Selvi wanted to make a career in aviation. She put herself through a training school in Colombo and was doing part-time jobs for aviation companies at Jaffna’s Palaly airport. She ran a vegetable export business on the side that generated a steady income. She did not want to rely on handouts from relatives in the diaspora, let alone emigrate via an arranged marriage with a diaspora Jaffna Tamil. Rather she wanted to stay, look after her mother and make the most of professional possibilities in post-war Sri Lanka. She told me there was a younger, aspirational generation in Jaffna without wartime baggage, who wanted to bridge old divides and mix productively with other Sri Lankans.

Jaffna, like the rest of the country, had its long queues in front of petrol stations, shortages of this and that, and hyperinflation. But it cast a different light on Sri Lanka’s present crisis to what I had seen elsewhere in the country. On our last evening in town, my hosts and I met a livewire doctor at the Northgate hotel bar, nursing a weird multicoloured cocktail and conversing in his fast-and-furious, semi-broken English. He was based at Jaffna hospital just around the corner.

He warned us to steer well clear of stray dogs; the country had run out of the anti-rabies vaccine, not to mention other essential medicines. Then he added: “The rest of the country is miserable because they don’t have petrol and cooking gas and suffer daily power cuts. But, during the war, we went for years without petrol, cooking gas and electricity. We had bombs dropping on us. We were terrorised by the army and the LTTE. This is nothing in comparison. So we cope as best we can and get on with life.”

The crisis got even worse after I left in June. In late July, the swelling Aragalaya protests finally prompted Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign as president. But the protestors’ victory was hollow. Parliament voted in Ranil Wickremesinghe as the new president. He owed his election to SLPP MPs and the backing of the Rajapaksas. He appointed a new prime minister and cabinet of Rajapaksa loyalists. The army and police cleared the Aragalaya protest site; some protesters were arrested and prosecuted.

There was no “system change”. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s unopposed return to Colombo in early September, enjoying all the privileges due to a former head of state, was proof enough that the system really had not changed. Sri Lanka’s economic and humanitarian crisis continues, so far without substantial reforms to turn the situation round. Complex negotiations with international organisations (the IMF, World Bank and ADB), sovereign creditors (especially China, India and Japan) and mainly US-based private bondholders are proceeding slowly. For ordinary Sri Lankans, there is no end in sight to their suffering.Razeen Sally is author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Island. He was a professor at the London School of Economics and the National University of Singapore, chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies, and an adviser to the Sri Lankan government.

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Features

The hollow recovery: A stagnant industry – Part I

Published

6 hours ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

The headlines are seductive: 2.36 million tourists in 2025, a new “record.” Ministers queue for photo opportunities. SLTDA releases triumphant press statements. The narrative is simple: tourism is “back.”

But scratch beneath the surface and what emerges is not a success story but a cautionary tale of an industry that has mistaken survival for transformation, volume for value, and resilience for strategy.

Problem Diagnosis: The Mirage of Recovery

Yes, Sri Lanka welcomed 2.36 million tourists in 2025, marginally above the 2.33 million recorded in 2018. This marks a full recovery from the consecutive disasters of the Easter attacks (2019), COVID-19 (2020-21), and the economic collapse (2022). The year-on-year growth looks impressive: 15.1% above 2024’s 2.05 million arrivals.

But context matters. Between 2018 and 2023, arrivals collapsed by 36.3%, bottoming out at 1.49 million. The subsequent “rebound” is simply a return to where we were seven years ago, before COVID, before the economic crisis, even before the Easter attacks. We have spent six years clawing back to 2018 levels while competitors have leaped ahead.

Consider the monthly data. In 2023, January arrivals were just 102,545, down 57% from January 2018’s 238,924. By January 2025, arrivals reached 252,761, a dramatic 103% jump over 2023, but only 5.8% above the 2018 baseline. This is not growth; it is recovery from an artificially depressed base. Every month in 2025 shows the same pattern: strong percentage gains over the crisis years, but marginal or negative movement compared to 2018.

The problem is not just the numbers, but the narrative wrapped around them. SLTDA’s “Year in Review 2025” celebrates the 15.6% first-half increase without once acknowledging that this merely restores pre-crisis levels. The “Growth Scenarios 2025” report projects arrivals between 2.4 and 3.0 million but offers no analysis of what kind of tourism is being targeted, what yield is expected, or how market composition will shift. This is volume-chasing for its own sake, dressed up as strategic planning.

Comparative Analysis: Three Decades of Standing Still

The stagnation becomes stark when placed against Sri Lanka’s closest island competitors. In the mid-1990s, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, started from roughly the same base, around 300,000 annual arrivals each. Three decades later:

Sri Lanka: From 302,000 arrivals (1996) to 2.36 million (2025), with $3.2 billion

Maldives: From 315,000 arrivals (1995) to 2.25 million (2025), with $5.6 billion

The raw numbers obscure the qualitative difference. The Maldives deliberately crafted a luxury, high-yield model: one-island-one-resort zoning, strict environmental controls, integrated resorts layered with sustainability credentials. Today, Maldivian tourism generates approximately $5.6 billion from 2 million tourists, an average of $2,800 per visitor. The sector represents 21% of GDP and generates nearly half of government revenue.

Sri Lanka, by contrast, has oscillated between slogans, “Wonder of Asia,” “So Sri Lanka”, without embedding them in coherent policy. We have no settled model, no consensus on what kind of tourism we want, and no institutional memory because personnel and priorities change with every government. So, we match or slightly exceed competitors in arrivals, but dramatically underperform in revenue, yield, and structural resilience.

Root Causes: Governance Deficit and Policy Failure

The stagnation is not accidental; it is manufactured by systemic governance failures that successive governments have refused to confront.

1. Policy Inconsistency as Institutional Culture

Sri Lanka has rewritten its Tourism Act and produced multiple master plans since 2005. The problem is not the absence of strategy documents but their systematic non-implementation. The National Tourism Policy approved in February 2024 acknowledges that “policies and directions have not addressed several critical issues in the sector” and that there was “no commonly agreed and accepted tourism policy direction among diverse stakeholders.”

This is remarkable candor, and a damning indictment. After 58 years of organised tourism development, we still lack policy consensus. Why? Because tourism policy is treated as political property, not national infrastructure. Changes in government trigger wholesale personnel changes at SLTDA, Tourism Ministry, and SLTPB. Institutional knowledge evaporates. Priorities shift with ministerial whims. Therefore, operators cannot plan, investors cannot commit, and the industry lurches from crisis response to crisis response without building structural resilience.

2. Fragmented Institutional Architecture

Tourism responsibilities are scattered across the Ministry of Tourism, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), provincial authorities, and an ever-expanding roster of ad hoc committees. The ADB’s 2024 Tourism Sector Diagnostics bluntly notes that “governance and public infrastructure development of tourism in Sri Lanka is fragmented and hampered.”

No single institution owns yield. No one is accountable for net foreign exchange contribution after leakages. Quality standards are unenforced. The tourism development fund, 1% of the tourism levy plus embarkation taxes, is theoretically allocated 70% to SLTPB for global promotion, but “lengthy procurement and approval processes” render it ineffective.

Critically, the current government has reportedly scrapped sophisticated data analytics programmes that were finally giving SLTDA visibility into spending patterns, high-yield segments, and tourist movement. According to industry reports in late 2025, partnerships with entities like Mastercard and telecom data analytics have been halted, forcing the sector to fly blind precisely when data-driven decision-making is essential.

3. Infrastructure Deficit and Resource Misallocation

The Bandaranaike International Airport Development Project, essential for handling projected tourist volumes, has been repeatedly delayed. Originally scheduled for completion years ago, it is now re-tendered for 2027 delivery after debt restructuring. Meanwhile, tourists in late 2025 faced severe congestion at BIA, with reports of near-miss flights due to immigration and check-in bottlenecks.

At cultural sites, basic facilities are inadequate. Sigiriya, which generates approximately 25% of cultural tourist traffic and charges $36 per visitor, lacks adequate lighting, safety measures, and emergency infrastructure. Tourism associations report instances of tourists being attacked by wild elephants with no effective safety protocols.

SLTDA Chairman statements acknowledge “many restrictions placed on incurring capital expenditure” and “embargoes placed not only on tourism but all Government institutions.” The frank admission: we lack funds to maintain the assets that generate revenue. This is governance failure in its purest form, allowing revenue-generating infrastructure to decay while chasing arrival targets.

The Stop-Go Trap: Volatility as Business Model

What truly differentiates Sri Lanka from competitors is not arrival levels but the pattern: extreme stop-go volatility driven by crisis and short-term stimulus rather than steady, strategic growth.

After each shock, the industry is told to “bounce back” without being given the tools to build resilience. The rebound mechanism is consistent: currency depreciation makes Sri Lanka “affordable,” operators discount aggressively to fill rooms, and visa concessions attract price-sensitive segments. Arrivals recover, until the next shock.

This is not how a strategic export industry operates. It is how a shock-absorber behaves, used to plug forex and fiscal holes after each policy failure, then left exposed again.

The monthly 2023-2025 data illustrate the cycle perfectly. Between January 2018 and January 2023, arrivals fell 57%. The “recovery” to January 2025 shows a 103% jump over 2023, but this is bounce-back from an artificially depressed base, not structural transformation. By September 2025, growth rates normalize into the teens and twenties, catch-up to a benchmark set six years earlier.

Why the Boom Feels Like Stagnation

Industry operators report a disconnect between headline numbers and ground reality. Occupancy rates have improved to the high-60% range, but margins remain below 2018 levels. Why?

Because input costs, energy, food, debt servicing, have risen faster than room rates. The rupee’s collapse makes Sri Lanka look “affordable” to foreigners, but it quietly transfers value from domestic suppliers and workers to foreign visitors and lenders. Hotels fill rooms at prices that barely cover costs once translated into hard currency and adjusted for inflation.

Growth is fragile and concentrated. Europe and Asia-Pacific account for over 92% of arrivals. India alone provides 20.7% of visitors in H1 2025, and as later articles in this series will show, this is a low-yield, short-stay segment. We have built recovery on market concentration and price competition, not on product differentiation or yield optimization.

There is no credible long-term roadmap. SLTDA’s projections focus almost entirely on volumes. There is no public discussion of receipts-per-visitor targets, market composition strategies, or institutional reforms required to shift from volume to value.

The Way Forward: From Arrivals Theater to Strategic Transformation

The path out of stagnation requires uncomfortable honesty and political courage that has been systematically absent.

First, abandon arrivals as the primary success metric. Tourism contribution to economic recovery should be measured by net foreign exchange contribution after leakages, employment quality (wages, stability), and yield per visitor, not by how many planes land.

Second, establish institutional continuity. Depoliticize relevant leaderships. Implement fixed terms for key personnel insulated from political cycles. Tourism is a 30-year investment horizon; it cannot be managed on five-year electoral cycles.

Third, restore data infrastructure. Reinstate the analytics programs that track spending patterns and identify high-yield segments. Without data, we are flying blind, and no amount of ministerial optimism changes that.

Fourth, allocate resources to infrastructure. The tourism development fund exists, use it. Online promotions, BIA expansion, cultural site upgrades, last-mile connectivity cannot wait for “better fiscal conditions.” These assets generate the revenue that funds their own maintenance.

Resilience without strategy is stagnation with momentum. And stagnation, however energetically celebrated, remains stagnation.

If policymakers continue to mistake arrivals for achievement, Sri Lanka will remain trapped in a cycle: crash, discount, recover, repeat. Meanwhile, competitors will consolidate high-yield models, and we will wonder why our tourism “boom” generates less cash, less jobs, and less development than it should.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT, Malabe. The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal.)

Features

The call for review of reforms in education: discussion continues …

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/3

Sahan Weerasooriya

PM Harini Amarasuriya

The hype around educational reforms has abated slightly, but the scandal of the reforms persists. And in saying scandal, I don’t mean the error of judgement surrounding a misprinted link of an online dating site in a Grade 6 English language text book. While that fiasco took on a nasty, undeserved attack on the Minister of Education and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, fundamental concerns with the reforms have surfaced since then and need urgent discussion and a mechanism for further analysis and action. Members of Kuppi have been writing on the reforms the past few months, drawing attention to the deeply troubling aspects of the reforms. Just last week, a statement, initiated by Kuppi, and signed by 94 state university teachers, was released to the public, drawing attention to the fundamental problems underlining the reforms https://island.lk/general-educational-reforms-to-what-purpose-a-statement-by-state-university-teachers/. While the furore over the misspelled and misplaced reference and online link raged in the public domain, there were also many who welcomed the reforms, seeing in the package, a way out of the bottle neck that exists today in our educational system, as regards how achievement is measured and the way the highly competitive system has not helped to serve a population divided by social class, gendered functions and diversities in talent and inclinations. However, the reforms need to be scrutinised as to whether they truly address these concerns or move education in a progressive direction aimed at access and equity, as claimed by the state machinery and the Minister… And the answer is a resounding No.

The statement by 94 university teachers deplores the high handed manner in which the reforms were hastily formulated, and without public consultation. It underlines the problems with the substance of the reforms, particularly in the areas of the structure of education, and the content of the text books. The problem lies at the very outset of the reforms, with the conceptual framework. While the stated conceptualisation sounds fancifully democratic, inclusive, grounded and, simultaneously, sensitive, the detail of the reforms-structure itself shows up a scandalous disconnect between the concept and the structural features of the reforms. This disconnect is most glaring in the way the secondary school programme, in the main, the junior and senior secondary school Phase I, is structured; secondly, the disconnect is also apparent in the pedagogic areas, particularly in the content of the text books. The key players of the “Reforms” have weaponised certain seemingly progressive catch phrases like learner- or student-centred education, digital learning systems, and ideas like moving away from exams and text-heavy education, in popularising it in a bid to win the consent of the public. Launching the reforms at a school recently, Dr. Amarasuriya says, and I cite the state-owned broadside Daily News here, “The reforms focus on a student-centered, practical learning approach to replace the current heavily exam-oriented system, beginning with Grade One in 2026 (https://www.facebook.com/reel/1866339250940490). In an address to the public on September 29, 2025, Dr. Amarasuriya sings the praises of digital transformation and the use of AI-platforms in facilitating education (https://www.facebook.com/share/v/14UvTrkbkwW/), and more recently in a slightly modified tone (https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/PM-pledges-safe-tech-driven-digital-education-for-Sri-Lankan-children/108-331699).

The idea of learner- or student-centric education has been there for long. It comes from the thinking of Paulo Freire, Ivan Illyich and many other educational reformers, globally. Freire, in particular, talks of learner-centred education (he does not use the term), as transformative, transformative of the learner’s and teacher’s thinking: an active and situated learning process that transforms the relations inhering in the situation itself. Lev Vygotsky, the well-known linguist and educator, is a fore runner in promoting collaborative work. But in his thought, collaborative work, which he termed the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is processual and not goal-oriented, the way teamwork is understood in our pedagogical frameworks; marks, assignments and projects. In his pedagogy, a well-trained teacher, who has substantial knowledge of the subject, is a must. Good text books are important. But I have seen Vygotsky’s idea of ZPD being appropriated to mean teamwork where students sit around and carry out a task already determined for them in quantifying terms. For Vygotsky, the classroom is a transformative, collaborative place.

But in our neo liberal times, learner-centredness has become quick fix to address the ills of a (still existing) hierarchical classroom. What it has actually achieved is reduce teachers to the status of being mere cogs in a machine designed elsewhere: imitative, non-thinking followers of some empty words and guide lines. Over the years, this learner-centred approach has served to destroy teachers’ independence and agency in designing and trying out different pedagogical methods for themselves and their classrooms, make input in the formulation of the curriculum, and create a space for critical thinking in the classroom.

Thus, when Dr. Amarasuriya says that our system should not be over reliant on text books, I have to disagree with her (https://www.newsfirst.lk/2026/01/29/education-reform-to-end-textbook-tyranny ). The issue is not with over reliance, but with the inability to produce well formulated text books. And we are now privy to what this easy dismissal of text books has led us into – the rabbit hole of badly formulated, misinformed content. I quote from the statement of the 94 university teachers to illustrate my point.

“The textbooks for the Grade 6 modules . . . . contain rampant typographical errors and include (some undeclared) AI-generated content, including images that seem distant from the student experience. Some textbooks contain incorrect or misleading information. The Global Studies textbook associates specific facial features, hair colour, and skin colour, with particular countries and regions, and refers to Indigenous peoples in offensive terms long rejected by these communities (e.g. “Pygmies”, “Eskimos”). Nigerians are portrayed as poor/agricultural and with no electricity. The Entrepreneurship and Financial Literacy textbook introduces students to “world famous entrepreneurs”, mostly men, and equates success with business acumen. Such content contradicts the policy’s stated commitment to “values of equity, inclusivity and social justice” (p. 9). Is this the kind of content we want in our textbooks?”

Where structure is concerned, it is astounding to note that the number of subjects has increased from the previous number, while the duration of a single period has considerably reduced. This is markedly noticeable in the fact that only 30 hours are allocated for mathematics and first language at the junior secondary level, per term. The reduced emphasis on social sciences and humanities is another matter of grave concern. We have seen how TV channels and YouTube videos are churning out questionable and unsubstantiated material on the humanities. In my experience, when humanities and social sciences are not properly taught, and not taught by trained teachers, students, who will have no other recourse for related knowledge, will rely on material from controversial and substandard outlets. These will be their only source. So, instruction in history will be increasingly turned over to questionable YouTube channels and other internet sites. Popular media have an enormous influence on the public and shapes thinking, but a well formulated policy in humanities and social science teaching could counter that with researched material and critical thought. Another deplorable feature of the reforms lies in provisions encouraging students to move toward a career path too early in their student life.

The National Institute of Education has received quite a lot of flak in the fall out of the uproar over the controversial Grade 6 module. This is highlighted in a statement, different from the one already mentioned, released by influential members of the academic and activist public, which delivered a sharp critique of the NIE, even while welcoming the reforms (https://ceylontoday.lk/2026/01/16/academics-urge-govt-safeguard-integrity-of-education-reforms). The government itself suspended key players of the NIE in the reform process, following the mishap. The critique of NIE has been more or less uniform in our own discussions with interested members of the university community. It is interesting to note that both statements mentioned here have called for a review of the NIE and the setting up of a mechanism that will guide it in its activities at least in the interim period. The NIE is an educational arm of the state, and it is, ultimately, the responsibility of the government to oversee its function. It has to be equipped with qualified staff, provided with the capacity to initiate consultative mechanisms and involve panels of educators from various different fields and disciplines in policy and curriculum making.

In conclusion, I call upon the government to have courage and patience and to rethink some of the fundamental features of the reform. I reiterate the call for postponing the implementation of the reforms and, in the words of the statement of the 94 university teachers, “holistically review the new curriculum, including at primary level.”

(Sivamohan Sumathy was formerly attached to the University of Peradeniya)

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

By Sivamohan Sumathy

Features

Constitutional Council and the President’s Mandate

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/3

Sahan Weerasooriya

A file photo of a Constitutional Council meeting

The Constitutional Council stands out as one of Sri Lanka’s most important governance mechanisms particularly at a time when even long‑established democracies are struggling with the dangers of executive overreach. Sri Lanka’s attempt to balance democratic mandate with independent oversight places it within a small but important group of constitutional arrangements that seek to protect the integrity of key state institutions without paralysing elected governments. Democratic power must be exercised, but it must also be restrained by institutions that command broad confidence. In each case, performance has been uneven, but the underlying principle is shared.

Comparable mechanisms exist in a number of democracies. In the United Kingdom, independent appointments commissions for the judiciary and civil service operate alongside ministerial authority, constraining but not eliminating political discretion. In Canada, parliamentary committees scrutinise appointments to oversight institutions such as the Auditor General, whose independence is regarded as essential to democratic accountability. In India, the collegium system for judicial appointments, in which senior judges of the Supreme Court play the decisive role in recommending appointments, emerged from a similar concern to insulate the judiciary from excessive political influence.

The Constitutional Council in Sri Lanka was developed to ensure that the highest level appointments to the most important institutions of the state would be the best possible under the circumstances. The objective was not to deny the executive its authority, but to ensure that those appointed would be independent, suitably qualified and not politically partisan. The Council is entrusted with oversight of appointments in seven critical areas of governance. These include the judiciary, through appointments to the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, the independent commissions overseeing elections, public service, police, human rights, bribery and corruption, and the office of the Auditor General.

JVP Advocacy

The most outstanding feature of the Constitutional Council is its composition. Its ten members are drawn from the ranks of the government, the main opposition party, smaller parties and civil society. This plural composition was designed to reflect the diversity of political opinion in Parliament while also bringing in voices that are not directly tied to electoral competition. It reflects a belief that legitimacy in sensitive appointments comes not only from legal authority but also from inclusion and balance.

The idea of the Constitutional Council was strongly promoted around the year 2000, during a period of intense debate about the concentration of power in the executive presidency. Civil society organisations, professional bodies and sections of the legal community championed the position that unchecked executive authority had led to abuse of power and declining public trust. The JVP, which is today the core part of the NPP government, was among the political advocates in making the argument and joined the government of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on this platform.

The first version of the Constitutional Council came into being in 2001 with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution during the presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. The Constitutional Council functioned with varying degrees of effectiveness. There were moments of cooperation and also moments of tension. On several occasions President Kumaratunga disagreed with the views of the Constitutional Council, leading to deadlock and delays in appointments. These experiences revealed both the strengths and weaknesses of the model.

Since its inception in 2001, the Constitutional Council has had its ups and downs. Successive constitutional amendments have alternately weakened and strengthened it. The 18th Amendment significantly reduced its authority, restoring much of the appointment power to the executive. The 19th Amendment reversed this trend and re-established the Council with enhanced powers. The 20th Amendment again curtailed its role, while the 21st Amendment restored a measure of balance. At present, the Constitutional Council operates under the framework of the 21st Amendment, which reflects a renewed commitment to shared decision making in key appointments.

Undermining Confidence

The particular issue that has now come to the fore concerns the appointment of the Auditor General. This is a constitutionally protected position, reflecting the central role played by the Auditor General’s Department in monitoring public spending and safeguarding public resources. Without a credible and fearless audit institution, parliamentary oversight can become superficial and corruption flourishes unchecked. The role of the Auditor General’s Department is especially important in the present circumstances, when rooting out corruption is a stated priority of the government and a central element of the mandate it received from the electorate at the presidential and parliamentary elections held in 2024.

So far, the government has taken hitherto unprecedented actions to investigate past corruption involving former government leaders. These actions have caused considerable discomfort among politicians now in the opposition and out of power. However, a serious lacuna in the government’s anti-corruption arsenal is that the post of Auditor General has been vacant for over six months. No agreement has been reached between the government and the Constitutional Council on the nominations made by the President. On each of the four previous occasions, the nominees of the President have failed to obtain its concurrence.

The President has once again nominated a senior officer of the Auditor General’s Department whose appointment was earlier declined by the Constitutional Council. The key difference on this occasion is that the composition of the Constitutional Council has changed. The three representatives from civil society are new appointees and may take a different view from their predecessors. The person appointed needs to be someone who is not compromised by long years of association with entrenched interests in the public service and politics. The task ahead for the new Auditor General is formidable. What is required is professional competence combined with moral courage and institutional independence.

New Opportunity

By submitting the same nominee to the Constitutional Council, the President is signaling a clear preference and calling it to reconsider its earlier decision in the light of changed circumstances. If the President’s nominee possesses the required professional qualifications, relevant experience, and no substantiated allegations against her, the presumption should lean toward approving the appointment. The Constitutional Council is intended to moderate the President’s authority and not nullify it.

A consensual, collegial decision would be the best outcome. Confrontational postures may yield temporary political advantage, but they harm public institutions and erode trust. The President and the government carry the democratic mandate of the people; this mandate brings both authority and responsibility. The Constitutional Council plays a vital oversight role, but it does not possess an independent democratic mandate of its own and its legitimacy lies in balanced, principled decision making.

Sri Lanka’s experience, like that of many democracies, shows that institutions function best when guided by restraint, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to the public good. The erosion of these values elsewhere in the world demonstrates their importance. At this critical moment, reaching a consensus that respects both the President’s mandate and the Constitutional Council’s oversight role would send a powerful message that constitutional governance in Sri Lanka can work as intended.

by Jehan Perera