Forty five per cent of Sri Lanka’s household education budget is being spent on private education according to the State of the Economy 2017 report compiled by the Institute of Policy Studies.
While a significant fraction of the household education budget is utilized in financing shadow education the reports states that 45 per cent per cent of the household education budget was spent on private education in the year 2012/2013.
Speaking to the Sunday Observer State Minister of Finance, Eran Wickramaratne said that the solution to children attending tuition during schooling hours lies in attempting to make the education system more responsive to the rapidly changing world. “This is not necessarily about resources, but about the quality of education,” he said.
Deputy Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs Dr Harsha de Silva said that for a sustainable economy, a knowledge based, social market economic model is necessary, which has already been prescribed by Government policy plan, Vision 2025.
The 2018 Appropriation Bill has allocated Rs 103 billion for Ministry of Education, which is a 34 per cent increase compared with the Rs. 76 billion allocated in 2017. The total allocation for Ministry of Higher Education and Highways has increased by 12 per cent, to Rs 182 billion to improve education services and eliminate the need for shadow education.