Schools to remain open till end December

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Minister of Education, Susil Premajayantha said that plans were undersay to keep schools open until 22 or 23 December 2022.The minister said that he had spoken to all stakeholders in the education sector and everyone had agreed the need to keep schools open.

“We have to cover the 2022 syllabus. We have also taken steps to prepare text books, and obtain the inputs needed such as paper and equipment for education institutions to function. We have spoken to the Treasury to see if we can get necessary funding from credit lines extended to us. We have also taken steps to provide school uniform matieral for 2023. We have prepared the necessary estimates and soon they will be given to the treasury,” the Minister said.Minister Premajayantha said they were also concerned about the nutrition of students. The government already provided a mid-day meal to 1.1 pre school and primary school students in selected areas.

However, the daily allocation for each child was not adequate given the recent price hikes and the allocation has to be doubled at least, he said.

“We have prepared a Cabinet paper. I have also held meetings with the World Food Programme, the United National Development Fund and United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. I have also held discussions with ambassadors of friendly nations. I am sure we will be able to secure the necessary funds and develop programmes,” he said.

The Minister said that many countries across the world provided free midday meals to students. Given the rising economic difficulties, expansion of the midday meal programme becomes doubly important, he said, adding that they were trying to minimise the corruption and irregularities in enrolling students to tier one schools. He said there were 393 national schools, but the real competition was to enter one of 34 tier one schools in major cities in the country.

“There is too much competition and too little space in these schools. There are a lot of irregularities when entering students in the classes. There is a circular specifying how many students can be in one class, bit this is blatantly violated in many tier one schools,” he said.

“We have released cutoff marks for Grade Five scholarship examination. We need to enroll these students in national schools. We need to minimise irregularities at school level,” he said.