The JVP-led NPP government signals left and turns right. It claims to have a Marxist agenda, but it is following the same neoliberal policies as its predecessors. It was only the other day that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared at a Ratnapura District Development Committee meeting that the government should not engage in business activities, which had to be left to the private sector. Now, one of the NPP’s erstwhile comrades, the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) has accused the government of trying to close down low-enrollment schools across the country, and redeploy teachers currently working in them to fill vacancies elsewhere. CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin has said the public should not buy into claims being made by President Dissanayake and Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya that their government will not close down small schools.
There are 10,146 state-run schools in Sri Lanka. Of them 9,750 are under Provincial Councils and 396 are national schools. About 800 rural schools have already been closed down during the past several decades, and it is feared that many more are bound to face the same fate in the near future.
One of the slogans used by the JVP to mobilise the rural youth during its second uprising in the late 1980s highlighted a glaring urban bias in state resource allocation, as evident from the underdeveloped educational and healthcare institutions in far-flung areas. Those were the pre-social media days, and the JVP used posters to convey its political messages to the masses. Posters would often appear with a catchy slogan: Kolombota Kiri, Gamata Kekiri (‘Milk for Colombo and melon for the village’). The JVP’s ascent to power was expected to ensure that the village would also have kiri, so to speak, but the status quo remains. Worse, the JVP-led government stands accused of planning to deprive poor children of easy access to schools.
It has been reported that Prime Minister Dr. Amarasuriya, addressing the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Education Reform on Wednesday insisted that no schools would be closed and the government’s policy was to “integrate and develop” existing institutions. It is said that politicians, like diplomats, tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip. So, the government should be asked to explain its ‘integrate-and-develop’ policy in simple terms and say whether it will allow the small schools earmarked for closure to remain open.
Speaking in Parliament about the proposed educational reforms in July 2025, President Dissanayake said that 98 state-run schools had been without any new admissions. Pointing out that about 15% schools had fewer than 50 students each, and about two-thirds of schools had fewer than 100 students each, he said a strategy to overcome the problem might necessitate permanent closure of some of those seats of learning. According to teachers’ trade unions and organisations dedicated to protecting universal free education, most of these low-enrollment schools are situated in rural areas.
President Dissanayake also informed Parliament that the school dropout figures had risen from 16,673 in 2019 to 20,759 in 2022 before plateauing at 20,755 in 2024. Everything possible must be done to bring these figures down in the shortest possible time. A steep school dropout rate is much more than a mere statistic; it is a symptom of systemic social issues. In 2024, former Education Minister Dullas Alahapperuma revealed that about 129,000 students had dropped out of school due to the economic crisis; their parents found it extremely difficult to pay for their food, school supplies, transport, supplementary tuition, etc., he said. This fact has been borne out by the findings of a survey conducted by the Department of Census and statistics.
The closure of rural schools is said to be due to several factors, such as prolonged neglect, lack of resources, the expansion of public transport and the attraction of urban schools. As we argued in a previous editorial comment, whatever the causes of the closure of underprivileged schools may be, the fact remains that proximity and easy accessibility help attract poor children to schools, especially today, when transport costs are prohibitive. If the rural schools are left to wither on the vine, the dropout rate among poor students will further increase, leading to various social issues. It is said that he who opens a school door closes a prison. Will the NPP government’s plan for the underprivileged schools will lead to the opening of more prisons?