Of late, the Government of Sri Lanka has been speaking (quite rightly!) of educational reform. The Honourable Prime Minister, speaking on behalf of the Government, stated, “Our foremost function is to develop the human resource in this country to take it towards a transformative era.” She further added, “Changing the disparity prevailing within this education system is a main objective we have. Accordingly, our basic aim is to create a system of education in which all the children can come to an acceptable position through our education system, not only a section of children.” The vision is certainly noble, not to mention critical: integrate vocational pathways, enhance teacher development, create a stress-free learning environment, and build a nationally managed system.
If media reports are to be believed, initial changes are said to be rolled out in 2026, starting with Grades 1 and 6. On paper, it does indeed look like a muchneeded new dawn for the future of education in Sri Lanka, with some very promising and ambitious pillars, namely new syllabi, infrastructure upgrades, human resource development, and assessments that value understanding over rote learning. The blueprint speaks of creating citizens who can enter fields as varied as medicine, engineering, agriculture, fisheries, and the arts with both confidence and dignity. However, we need to remember that promises have always looked good on paper, and ambition alone does not guarantee success. What matters is the lived reality of our classrooms. The danger is that we may be stepping out of the frying pan only to fall straight into the fire, especially if the reforms are guided by the same voices who designed the current curriculum, a system that has failed to prepare our students for the world they must enter.
Learning has lost its joy. Instead of studying for mastery, students are pushed to perform for the test. In India for example (a mere Palk Strait away!), young people are encouraged to speak up, even if their grammar falters.
I have had the opportunity to interact with students across the island and what I have witnessed should unsettle every policymaker. In the Eastern Province, Grade 9 students are unable to tell the time in English, even something as basic as saying “nine o’clock.” In the South, children as old as 11 are turned away from schools for not being able to keep up with fundamental Mathematics or English. In classrooms island wide, students with C passes at the GCE O-level English Language examinations struggle to follow instructions or hold a simple conversation.
They have “heard” of the United Nations, but cannot articulate its purpose. They can reproduce history dates, but not interpret the lessons learnt from history or the implication of decisions taken in the context of international relations.
Critical thinking is a stranger in the vast majority of Sri Lankan schools. To ask whether a piece of information is credible, or to apply theory to practice, is almost unheard of. What we are producing are neither graduates ready for work, nor even students ready for university. We are producing students who, at best, can memorise and regurgitate, and who certainly cannot connect knowledge to life.
The root of the crisis is not just in content, but in culture. Our system has chained students to rote learning. They believe that the solution to every problem is to by-heart material and pour it back onto the page. Exams are designed to expose what students do not know rather than allow them to show what they do. Large class sizes, outdated methodologies, and teachers who lack confidence in their own knowledge make the classroom a factory line, not a place of discovery.
Learning has lost its joy. Instead of studying for mastery, students are pushed to perform for the test. In India for example (a mere Palk Strait away!), young people are encouraged to speak up, even if their grammar falters. On the contrary in Sri Lanka, students are silenced in class and at times rebuked as disrespectful for asking questions. And so they go on to graduate, passive, uncertain, and lacking the confidence to engage with the world.
No reform will succeed unless it begins with the teachers. A teacher is not merely a dispenser of content, but a facilitator of learning. To play this role, teachers need training, not just in subject matter, but in empathy, scaffolding, and the art of guiding students toward their own discoveries.
Yet today, many teachers feel threatened when questioned. They are not trained to admit that they do not know something, and to turn that moment into an opportunity for shared learning.
Instead, they conveniently hide behind supposed syllabi that “must be completed” and deny students the joy and the opportunity of considering the question “what if?”. Confidence in students thus withers, and curiosity dies.
In the far-flung reaches of our island, teachers are often posted to rural schools without the necessary training or subject mastery to meet the demands of a modern classroom. In many such cases, school heads themselves lack the academic and professional grounding to assess and support these teachers effectively.
This results in a system where educational standards are assumed rather than assured. While the dedication of many individuals within the system is not in question, the lack of consistent professional development and oversight leaves entire communities underserved. To truly reform education, we must begin by investing not just in infrastructure, but in the human capital that sustains it, equipping both teachers and administrators with the tools to inspire, to question, and to grow alongside their students.
If teacher training remains shallow, if class sizes remain unmanageable, if assessment continues to reward memorisation rather than mastery, then any reforms brought about will be no more than a plaster on a festering wound.
The greatest teachers are not the ones who complete the syllabus, but the ones who connect with their students and pass on lessons for life. The irony is that these are the teachers we were all once privileged to have ourselves, mentors who left an indelible mark on our lives. But in our quest to keep up with the West, we seem to have forgotten to value the vocation that is teaching, and bequeathed to our children so-called teachers whose focus is on KPIs rather than on inspiring confidence and developing character.
Another danger lies in the way curricula are often “revised.” Too often, reform means adding more modern-sounding content without removing the outdated. In other words, more weight on an already overburdened structure. What is truly required from our policymakers is the courage to start from a blank page, to ask not “what should we add?” but “what do our students really need to thrive in the 21st century?”
In the far-flung reaches of our island, teachers are often posted to rural schools without the necessary training or subject mastery to meet the demands of a modern classroom.
EdTech platforms will not save us. They are merely tools, not substitutes for good teachers. The temptation to rush into reforms and showcase them by 2026 may bring political applause, but the question remains as to whether a transformation so deep, so structural, so cultural, really can be achieved in the remaining few months of preparation?
The Real Test Ahead.
The Government’s intentions are not in doubt, and the Honourable Prime Minister’s diagnosis of the need for reform is correct.
To her credit, Dr Amarasuriya has not ignored material realities. She has spoken of equitable distribution of resources: digital tools, sanitary facilities, laboratories, playgrounds, aesthetic units. She has called for fairness across provinces, where difficult areas too often languish without support.
This is all very essential. But infrastructure without pedagogy is like building theatres without actors. A laboratory means little if students only copy notes from the board. A smartboard means nothing if teachers do not know how to integrate it into learning. Sri Lanka’s education system does not need cosmetic changes; rather, it needs radical and fundamental surgery. It needs courage to dismantle the structures of rote, to challenge the culture of silence, to rebuild teacher training, and to shift the very purpose of education from performance to mastery, from memorisation to critical thought.
If these reforms are to be more than a passing headline, they must confront these truths. Otherwise, we risk arriving at 2026 with new syllabi, new textbooks, new slogans, alongside the same broken classrooms, the same disheartened teachers, and the same students ill-prepared for the world.
promise is there. The peril is just as real. Whether we address the wound, or merely cover it with plaster, will depend on whether we are brave enough to reimagine education from the ground up.
