Sri Lanka’s education sector is rarely in the news for the right reasons. It is perennially in turmoil and characterised by countless problems and clashes. Thankfully, the Education Ministry has walked back its controversial decision to extend the school day by half an hour. It is reported to have cited transport problems caused by recent disasters as the reason for the reversal of its decision. However, it is determined to go ahead with its education reforms amidst vehement protests from teachers, principals and other stakeholders.

The general consensus is that the education system in this country needs to be reformed, but the NPP government made a huge mistake by rushing to prepare education reforms without consulting other stakeholders and trying to shove them down the throats of principals, teachers and students. It should have adopted a conciliatory approach.

A stock excuse the government gives for its failure to fulfil its election promises is that one year is not sufficient for it to deliver on its campaign pledges, but it has formulated education reforms in double-quick time! There is no way the government can implement education reforms successfully without the cooperation of teachers and principals. Hence it should make a serious effort to secure their support.

All governments with supermajorities become impervious to reason and seek to bulldoze their way through. The NPP administration has failed to be different. It may have thought that it would be able to wear down the warring teachers’ unions by sticking to its guns. But the education sector trade unionists have proved that they are made of sterner stuff. They have warned that they will bring the government to its knees if it tries to force them into submission.

Schools have faced numerous disruptions during the past several years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, etc. A strike in the education sector is the last thing the country needs at this juncture. A showdown between the education sector trade unions and the government must therefore be averted by any means.

When the government announced its decision to introduce education reforms, we argued that it had to engage all stakeholders, and heed the oxymoronic Latin adage—festina lente (‘make haste slowly’). Many experts in the field of education urged it to tread cautiously lest its reform project should run into resistance and fail. But the government chose to set about the vital task in a slapdash manner. The ongoing controversy over an adult content website mentioned in an English language module for Grade Six points to an inordinate haste on the part of those who formulated education reforms. This issue has left both the proponents and opponents of education reforms expounding conspiracy theories.

The proposed education reforms have been politicised to such an extent that they are now a political issue, which the Opposition is using as a bludgeon to beat the government. This situation could have been avoided if the processes of formulating education reforms had been made inclusive.

There is no shame in heeding dissenting views and making course corrections. Flexibility is not a sign of weakness. It is a hallmark of responsible governance. The government ought to put its education reform package on hold, and get all stakeholders around the table for an extensive discussion on it. A timeframe for education reforms must not be determined politically.

Independent educationists have provided valuable insights into the ongoing debate on education reforms. They are adept at designing learning systems, developing teaching approaches and influencing educational practices and policies to improve learning experiences and outcomes. The views of these experts, principals and teachers must be taken on board when education reforms are prepared.

Saturday 3rd Junuary, 2026

The Electricity Consumers’ Association (ECA) has said the government is planning to pass the cost of the voluntary retirement scheme for the employees of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), which is to be restructured, on to the public in the form of a power tariff hike. A proposal to this effect has been submitted to the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), the ECA has said.

The proposed tariff hike is said to be 11.57% for the first quarter of the current year. Speculation is rife that the PUCSL will grant the CEB’s request, and the public will be made to bear the cost of the voluntary retirement of about 2,500 CEB employees thanks to the cost reflective pricing mechanism. The problem is not going to end there; there are bound to be some more power tariff hikes.

One of the reasons given for Sri Lanka’s rupee crisis was the country’s legacy of below-cost pricing for utilities, such as electricity and fuel, by way of a ‘blanket’ type relief to consumers irrespective of their income level. These subsidies took their toll on the state-owned business enterprises (SOBEs) including the CEB and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), according to the Central Bank, which in its Annual Economic Review 2024 has noted that the banking sector financed the liquidity shortages of these SOBEs at the expense of productive investments. Hence the determination of the prices of electricity and fuel strictly in keeping with the cost reflective pricing mechanism. In fact, the IMF gave the previous government Hobson’s choice, by making cost-reflective pricing one of its bailout conditions.

The cost reflective pricing has not gone down well with the public, as is obvious, but it makes economic sense and goes a long way towards preventing the country facing another rupee crisis. Heavy subsidies are a drain on the state coffers and become unviable in the long run. In fact, it is a case of swings and roundabouts for the public where such subsidies are concerned; the state uses taxes to recover the costs of subsidies and legacy debts it assumes. However, it is nothing but unfair to make consumers bear the cost of massive overheads, waste and corruption that SOBEs, like the CEB and the CPC, are notorious for. The costs of the utilities must therefore be properly calculated in a transparent manner to prevent the exploitation of the public.

If the government goes ahead with its plan to pass the cost of restructuring the CEB on to the public through power tariff hikes, as the ECA has alleged, then the price of electricity will soar, taking a heavy toll on the economy.

In March 2023, this newspaper quoted energy expert Dr. Tilak Siyamabalpitiya, who went on to become CEB Chairman, as having said at an event organised by the CEB engineers, that Sri Lanka had the second highest electricity prices in Asia. Thus, power tariff increases are very likely to stand in the way of the government’s efforts to attract foreign investors and retain the ones who are already here. One of the factors that determine the competitiveness of investment destinations is the cost of electricity. The government must not lose sight of this fact.

The government has chosen to remain silent on the ECA’s allegation. But the truth will soon come out.

Friday 2nd Junuary, 2026

The SJB yesterday called upon the NPP government to hold the much-delayed Provincial Council (PC) polls soon. Its call is bound to go unheeded, for the JVP/NPP is not ready for an election. Having suffered a string of defeats in the cooperative society elections during the past several months, the government is trying every trick in the book to postpone the PC elections further. The outcome of last year’s local government polls is not something the JVP/NPP can be really proud of; its efforts to sweep the polls did not reach fruition although it managed to bag a majority of local councils.

A midterm electoral setback could be the undoing of a government however powerful it may be. The fate that befell the Mahinda Rajapaksa government following the Uva PC polls in September 2014 is a case in point. The UPFA won the Uva PC, but the number of its seats dropped from 25 to 19. The number of UNP’s seats increased from 7 to 13. The JVP, which had only one seat in the previous council, secured 02 in 2014. President Rajapaksa, in his wisdom, advanced a presidential election, and lost the presidency to Maithripala Sirisena in January 2015.

So, it is highly unlikely that the NPP government will hold the PC polls anytime soon. The Opposition is not strong enough to pressure the government politically to take a huge electoral gamble by holding an election.

It is doubtful whether the Opposition is really keen to face an election at this juncture despite its rhetoric. The SJB and other Opposition parties have closed ranks and defeated budgets in a considerable number of NPP-controlled local councils and won cooperative society elections. But their fragile unity is not going to survive an election that they will have to contest separately. A split in the anti-government vote will stand the JVP/NPP in good stead. However, the situation is likely to change if the UNP and the SJB come together to contest future elections.

What enabled the UNP to improve its electoral performance in the Uva Province in 2014 and gain a strategic opening to topple the Rajapaksa government a few months later was a rapprochement between two factions led by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa.

The SJB leaders who are demanding that the PC polls be held soon ought to tender an apology to the public for the role they played in postponing the PC elections indefinitely in 2017 while they were in the UNP-led Yahapalana government. The UNP and the SLFP, as Yahapalana allies, were wary of facing an election in 2017 and therefore amended the PC Elections Act to delay the PC polls. None of the political parties represented in Parliament at the time, including the UNP, the SLFP/UPFA, the ITAK, the SLMC, and the JVP, opposed the obnoxious amendment to the PC Elections Act. The current SLPP leaders were dissident members of the UPFA. The original amendment Bill was to provide for a quota of 30% for female candidates on the nomination papers submitted for the PC elections, but it was changed beyond recognition at the committee stage to facilitate the postponement of the PC polls. Article 78 (3) of the Constitution says, “Any amendment proposed to a Bill in Parliament shall not deviate from the merits and principles of such Bill.” But the aforesaid political parties took the bad amendment for granted; the PC polls were made to disappear, as it were.

The incumbent government has said the PC polls will be held under the Mixed Proportional (MP) system. The delimitation of electoral boundaries, which is a prerequisite for holding the PC polls under the MP system, will take about one year, according to the Election Commission. The only way to hold the PC election soon is to legislate for it to be conducted under the existing Proportional Representation system. If the SJB is serious about having the PC polls held soon, it should campaign for amending the PC Elections Act, in Parliament. Let it be urged to fish or cut bait.