China has come forward to grant 1,000 smart boards to Sri Lankan schools across the country, Education Minister Susil Premajayantha said, two weeks after an Indian grant project distributed the digital equipment for establishing 200 smart classrooms with 2,200 smart tablets in the Southern Province.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government has fast tracked digitization of the education sector along with planned teacher training for the latest technology-based education system, amid opposition leader Sajith Premadasa’s move to grant smart classrooms for schools ahead of presidential polls later this year.
“Digitization of education sector is one of the reforms we have planned. We have already started it. Accordingly, there will be 1,250 clusters established. All the school systems will be included in these 1,250 clusters; one cluster will consist of 8-10 schools,” Minister Premajayantha told reporters at a news briefing in Colombo.
“We will be providing with 2,500 high-tech smart boards for all the key schools enabled with internet before September. We have taken initial steps for that. We are getting a grant for that from China.”
The Minister did not disclose the Chinese grant amount.
“The President through TRC (Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) from the Ministry of Technology will be providing 1,500 (smart boards) and 1,000 will be from the grant,” he said.
President Wickremesinghe is eyeing to contest in a grand independent coalition possibly with Premadasa as his main rival. The island nation’s Election Commission is expected to announce the date for the presidential poll before end-July.
President Wickremesinghe on July 8 distributed digital equipment under an Indian grant project worth 300 million Sri Lanka rupees ($1 million) for establishing 200 smart classrooms in Southern Province.
Premadasa, the leader of the main opposition center-right Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) has already distributed around 350 smart classrooms worth over 300 million rupees for schools across the country which his aides expect to win him more votes in the upcoming election.
President Wickremesinghe, the leader of center-right United National Party (UNP) which backs liberal policies, has yet to officially declare his candidature for the presidential poll which is likely to be scheduled between September 17 and October 16.
Minister Premajayantha said the government’s smart boards will be of high quality.
“The 1,250 schools will be connected to internet in the first phase. In the next phase, we will be connecting the rest of the schools. So within the next three years we will be completing the digitization. More than half (of the schools) are already given fiber optics. We have been planning with teacher training to prepare for this,” he said.
The establishment of Smart Classrooms in Southern Province is being implemented under the Indian bilateral High Impact Community Development Project framework which includes 18 grant projects cutting across sectors in all the 25 Districts of Sri Lanka with a total value of around 5.5 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($18.3 million).
Some informal and non-transparent surveys have suggested that Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, the leader of Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) and Premadasa are leading in terms of popularity followed by Wickremesinghe.