The Government’s newly proposed education reforms have sparked widespread discussion across the country.
In a televised interview last week, Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Higher Education, and Vocational Education, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, laid out the core elements of this ambitious initiative.
The reforms aim to transform Sri Lanka’s education system through a comprehensive curriculum overhaul, administrative restructuring, improvements in infrastructure, enhanced teacher training, and stronger stakeholder engagement.
Dr. Amarasuriya outlined the rationale behind postponing the curriculum update to 2026 and outlined how the reforms will be introduced progressively across grade levels. She also emphasised the broader goal of aligning education with Sri Lanka’s evolving social and economic needs. The interview offered insight into the motivations, challenges, and long-term vision behind these sweeping changes.
Excerpts
Q: In recent discussions, you said that the Government’s education transformation initiative goes beyond syllabus changes to include broader reforms such as administrative restructuring and infrastructure development. What prompted you to delay the implementation of the new curriculum to 2026, and how will your approach differ from the previous reform attempts?
A: We have already started the process. In our election manifesto we have paid a great deal of attention to educational reforms. Our education transformation initiative has five pillars. We plan on making changes to the syllabi in 2026 for Grade 1 and 6. However, syllabi is only a component of the overall transformation of the economy. We need to change the administrative structures, develop infrastructure, teacher training and create a dialogue with the public to achieve our goals.
According to experts, syllables need to change once in eight years. This has not happened for some time. The changes to the syllabus started in 2019. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic crisis and other factors, we have not carried out the reforms. The NIE has been trying to make these amendments for a while.
For example, they wanted to shift to a module-based system from about 2019. Under this system, the child doesn’t get a textbook but a module which could contain the exercises and assessments. The framework for the curriculum has been presented since 2020. In 2024, when we took over, the Ministry officers wanted to implement the reforms in 2025.
However, we wanted to tally the reforms with our own policy framework. Our aim was not a mere change in the syllables but also a broad transformation in education that would help us achieve desirable social transformation. This is why we wanted to delay the reforms until 2026. In the past six months, we have been reviewing the process, to tally it with our own policies.
Q: What were the specific shortcomings in the 2025 proposed education reforms that prompted you to introduce your own changes? Were there any urgent gaps or risks you felt needed immediate attention?
A: The changes the ministry had made were done before we came to power. We wanted to bring in experts and examine the contents of the modules. We also felt that a mere change in modules will have limited impact without changing administrative structures, developing infrastructure and training teachers.
The ministry had not made any preparations on those. We believe that education should foster resilience and empathy among children. We want them to be critical thinkers. We also felt the proposals earmarked for 2025, had left a significant gap between education and the world of work. We wanted to bring some elements of the world of work to school, to better prepare children.
Q: Can you outline the key steps and timeline for implementing the new education reforms starting next year? How will you ensure each stage is effectively monitored and adjusted as needed?
A: Next year, we will change the syllabi for Grade 1 and 6. The syllabi of Grades 2 and 7 would change in 2027. Under this sequence the Grade 10 changes should take place in 2030, and we felt this was too long and thus the Grade 10 syllabus will also change in 2029. That would mean that the GCE (OL) examination under the new syllabus, will be held in 2030. The new GCE (AL) syllabus will be introduced in 2031.
Q: What steps will the universities and other tertiary institutions need to take to align with the new school curriculum?
A: The universities will have to introduce new subjects. Now about 300,000 children enrol for Grade 1 each year. About 40,000 enter universities. Another 30,000 probably enter other tertiary institutions. So, what do we do with the others? This is why we wanted to expand higher education opportunities and paths. Not only universities, but vocational training centres must modernise and expand. Next year, we will start broad discussions on expanding higher education.
Q: What are the main drivers behind the need for education reform at this point? In your view, how will these changes address current deficiencies and future workforce needs in Sri Lanka?
A: There are many reasons. We believe that human capital plays an important role in transforming society. The NPP came into power to change the system, and we need to create a citizen who can transform the country for the better. Education is key in moulding citizens.
No one is happy with the existing system. All stakeholders in the system are unhappy and stressed. Are we creating citizens that can take the country to the next stage? Have we created an equitable system. The present system is very competitive, and the resources are allocated in an extremely unequal manner. There are over 10,000 schools, but everyone wants to enrol their children in about 20 schools because there is a massive gap between these schools and others.
Children split their time between school and tuition. What about their childhood? There are increasing reports that the psychosocial development of children is increasingly lessoning. They are less resilient. There is more violence in school and society and all these points to the fact that there is a lot of problems in our education system.
Q: What are the most significant changes students, parents, and teachers will experience under the new education reforms? How do these changes differ from previous reform attempts?
A: We will expand school time, 7.30 am to 2 p.m. The period is increased to 50 minutes and we have already made modal timetables. We are discussing these timetables with zonal education officers.
From Grade 1 to 5, there isn’t a great change in subjects apart from extra emphasis on science. However, we want to reduce children’s homework because most of the work is done in the classroom itself. We have also made extracurricular activities such as sports mandatory.
From Grade 6 to 9, we have introduced several new subjects. For example, citizen education, and technology for life.
The real changes will be introduced from Grade 9. At the end of Grade 9 all children have to undergo a skill test. This is a psychometric test. This is not an examination, and you don’t have to put a lot of effort into preparing. We will measure literacy and numeracy as well as determining what the skills of the students are and to identify what they like.
This assessment will give us a profile of the student and based on this; we will provide some guidance to what the child should do from Grade 10. From Grade 10, there will be five compulsory subjects. Students can also choose two optional subjects out of many.
Some people say aesthetics and history have been removed from the syllabus. This is false. Both subjects are there from grade 6 upwards, but what has changed is the way we assess them.
As I mentioned earlier, the child sits for seven subjects at the GCE (OL) examination. We will also introduce seven more elective modules; we call them Further Learning modules. Students can play around with these subjects based on their interests.
Let’s assume there is a child is interested in social sciences, such a child can select four Social Science modules, two from science and one from life skills/vocational training. Students should choose these subjects based on what they want to do as an adult, not about passing examinations in Grade 11.
We also wish to expose the child to practical work in those two years. Let’s say a child selects subjects that would help him or her to become an engineer. We will permit such children to talk to engineers, visit sites/offices where engineers work.
If someone wants to study Biology, we will let them spend some time in hospitals and to talk to or work to a doctor. Let’s assume a child selects Science subjects as in Grade 10 and the child feels this is not what electives he/she wants to do. They can again change electives in Grade 11.
After the GCE (OL) examination, the students can decide on what to do during Grades 12 and 13. We are permitting children to get ready for the GCE (AL) examination, from Grade 10 itself. Another important thing to remember is that, due to our reforms, all children leave schools with an NVQ4 certificate.
Q: What is the rationale behind extending the school day by 30 minutes, and how do you expect this to impact student learning, teacher workload, and overall school culture?
A: With the module system, children would need more time to finish their work in the classroom. This is not a system where you listen to the teacher, write things down and do a lot of homework. A student will do the bulk of his work in the class in an activity-based system.
There will be a lot of presentations and group work. We also plan to reduce the rush the children experience. We want to give students, small breaks following lessons.
Q: Systemic change is always difficult. What are the biggest challenges you foresee in implementing these reforms, and how do you plan to overcome resistance or obstacles from stakeholders?
A: Yes, all good changes are challenging. We came into power for this, and we are ready to do the work. As I said this change is based on five pillars, and we have been hitherto talking about one pillar, i.e. the syllabus. The other pillars include teacher training (not only for existing teachers, but also for those who enter the system.) We need to strengthen teacher training colleges. We also need to strengthen the zonal education offices to support and supervise teachers.
Changes in the administrative system is another pillar. We believe that there should not be more than 30 children in a classroom. It shouldn’t also be less than 25. If there are less than 25 children, there would be inadequate interaction. If there are more than 30, children won’t get the individual attention they need. We need to change the schools to reach that ideal.
Another pillar is developing the infrastructure. We need to think what a classroom looks like, about digital connectivity. There is a lot to be done. This is why we are doing things steadily and methodologically. We are not saying we will complete the initiative next year. On the other hand, we can’t wait until we perfect everything, that would mean another generation of children would suffer.
