By Saman Indrajith

The government has allocated 600 billion rupees for education in 2023 and this is the highest amount of money allocated for education in the country’s history, minister of education, Susil Premajayantha told parliament on Thursday (01).The minister said that Sri Lanka did not use its natural resources to its benefit and that in a way was the fault of its education system.

“40 percent of South Korea’s revenue is generated by Samsung. We have a number of mineral resources. We have not made anything using them and as long as we don’t use science and technology, we will remain a poor country,” he said.

The minister said that most students werecompelled to attend private tuition classes, paying a lot of money.

“We must develop school education system. MP Rohini Kumari Wijeratne highlighted many issues faced by students and teachers. These are all real issues and I think we can address most of this through technology. We also need to elevate teacher training colleges to universities. If we don’t improve the quality of our teachers, we won’t be able to improve our education,” he said.

The 2023 budget has allocated 231 billion for education. This is 31 billion rupees more than 2022, he said.

“If we include all the money allocated for schools run by provincial councils, we are spending over 600 billion on education next year,” he said.

Meanwhile, SLPP MP S.B. Dissanayake said that there are 10,000 schools in the country and out of that the state of 7000 schools is tragic.

“There are 200 national schools with appalling infrastructure. The government has allocated 1.1 of the GDP for education. We need to boost professional education. We can make a lot of money from education. I started the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine and faced many issues. Because of the resistance South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine faced, two other entities that wanted to start medical colleges here also withdrew,” he said.