Kohonawala Primary School by the mountains of Madulsima in the Passara Educational Zone has 15 students. Despite its student number being seven in 2021, Principal R.M. Jayasena, who has served there for 20 years, has managed to increase the student number. 

This school is among the 1,471 schools in Sri Lanka with fewer than 50 students. Most of these schools are in rural and remote areas. All the schools are primary schools with classes from Grades 1 to 5. Reports allege that 100 such schools are at risk of permanently closing down. 

However, a Ministry of Education Director in charge of the school modernisation programme told The Sunday Morning that no decisions had been made to close any school. 

“We have not made a decision to close any school. A project we conducted has been misunderstood,” she said. 

Govt. plans to restructure

Budget 2025 allocated Rs. 500 million to review the current school system and prepare a national plan to relocate schools. During his Budget speech, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that the Government’s policy was to develop a primary school within a 3 km radius of the child’s residence or their parent’s workplace. 

The Ministry of Education Director in charge of the project elaborated on the implementation of this allocation. 

“We have around 1,506 schools with less than 60 students. We have been instructed by the President to do an assessment to see what the quality of education is in these schools,” she said. 

Accordingly, 194 schools in nine educational zones representing the nine provinces are to be developed under the programme. The zones are Homagama, Galewela, Galle, Thunukkai, Batticaloa, Puttalam, Galenbindunuwewa, Bandarawela, and Dehiowita. 

Ministry and zonal educational officials will be assessing the schools with a focus on their teaching and learning process. As a pilot project, 33 schools are to be developed with plans to expand based on learnings from the project. 

Barriers to play-based learning

The Director explained that the need for the changes stemmed from the small schools not having enough students to implement play-based activities which constituted a significant portion of early primary education. 

“For play-based activities, at least 20 students are needed in a classroom. What we observed in these schools is that most only had two or three students in the class,” she said. 

Primary education consists of play-based and desk-based activities. While Grade 1 has a higher percentage of the former, as the child goes to upper grades, the percentage gradually shifts to the latter, according to her. 

Although the schools have infrastructure facilities and teachers, the Director claimed that the teachers could not implement the prescribed curriculum due to insufficient numbers of students for group activities. This resulted in a teacher having to teach the primary students language and mathematics for six hours a day, she alleged.

“They have to do maths and letters while students from more reputed schools engage in activities and outdoor games.”

Students have a right to go to a school with more students where they get to play and share ideas, said the Director.

As a solution, the ministry is to develop one school for each education division with required facilities recommended for primary education. Then, the students from that zone will be encouraged to attend that school. 

“This school could be one out of the small schools we have identified. This will be decided by the provincial authority,” she added. 

In order to attract students to the developed schools, in addition to infrastructure facilities recommended for primary education like a play area, the ministry is considering transport allowances and student grants. 

“We are there to help them attend the developed schools,” she said.

However, she added that the implementation of this project was difficult when it came to estate schools and therefore, they could not be restructured. This was due to the size of estates and their being the places of employment for the children’s parents, she said. 

Factors affecting student numbers

The Sunday Morning was informed by the Ministry of Education and some teachers that children’s school attendance had not declined. Most of the reductions in numbers are attributed to decreased population due to low birth rates and external migration. 

However, Kunapooshanam Kokuladas, a teacher from Amman Nagar Ambal Vidyalayam, Mutur said that due to social issues in the area, students were not enthusiastic about education. 

“The Tamil population has dwindled and there are many single mothers of children born out of wedlock. Resulting social issues have affected students’ interest to learn,” he said. 

Amman Nagar Ambal Vidyalayam is a primary school with 33 students and four teachers. According to Kokuladas, 17 Tamil schools and a Muslim school in the area including his are facing risks of permanent closure. 

“The President said that schools within 3 km will be developed but none of that has practically happened in the area,” he alleged. 

Kokuladas said that foreign aid was being received to support the students but with little success. 

A growing trend in new families settling in the Kohonawala hamlet and surrounding villages has resulted in an increase in enrolment of students at Kohonawala Primary School. According to Principal Jayasena, the emergence of small-scale pepper plantations has positively impacted the incomes of the people, making the village more attractive for settlement. 

“The surrounding villages have no schools so those students also come here,” he said. 

He said that the use of the internet in teaching and improved Grade 5 Scholarship Examination results and competency levels had made their school more attractive. 

“Last year, a student reached the cut-off mark at the Scholarship Exam,” he said. 

Importance of village-based schools

According to Jayasena, the Kohonawala Primary School is not at risk of closure as there are children in the village to attend the school. 

For the children of this village, this is the most convenient school to attend. The other schools are situated a 7-10 km walk away. 

“Closing this school down is not practical,” he said. 

Due to the small number of students, these schools receive philanthropic support. While this may not serve as a permanent solution to the inequalities in the education system, being donated stationery, school bags, and shoes help parents manage the economic burden of sending their children to school. 

“Many philanthropists come and help the children. The parent only has to send the child to school,” he noted.  

The Ministry of Education Director said that there were instances where parents of rural areas choose to send one of their children to a small school in order to receive philanthropic aid. She said that poverty was a factor that kept students away from attending reputed schools. 

The need for informed education reform

Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) General Secretary Joseph Stalin said that students from villages would not attend schools in other areas as schools in Sri Lanka had been founded based on villages. 

“If these schools close down, the children will have no school to go to,” he told The Sunday Morning. 

He also explained that disparities in schools were not an issue that only existed in rural areas. He highlighted that there were students in urban areas who did not attend the reputed schools nearby. 

“There is Royal College and then there is Mihindu Vidyalaya. But students from Mihindu Vidyalaya won’t go to Royal College,” he pointed out. 

Despite the budgetary allocations to ‘restructure schools,’ Stalin claimed that there was no clarity on what was meant by this.  

“We are opposed to this. I clearly say that uncritical and ill-informed moves should not be made,” he said. 

Stalin alleged that previous governments had attempted to close schools down in order to reduce education expenses as they viewed it as a waste of resources, also claiming that welfare cuts were one of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions.