CB report highlights regional disparities in education

The Central Bank has pointed out disparities in education based on regions and suggested remedial action.

The Central Bank in its 2019 report released recently has pointed out that where science education is concerned, according to the School Census – 2017 conducted by the Census and Statistics Department, of 10,194 schools in the country, 2,847 schools offer A/L classes of which only 1,029 schools have the science stream (i.e. 36 per cent of the schools with A/L classes).

“There are significant regional disparities in terms of availability of science A/L classes. For example, of the schools with A/L classes, the percentage of schools with the A/L science stream in Central, North Western, Uva and North Central provinces was as low as 26 per cent, 29 percent, and 33 per cent, respectively,” the report pointed out.

Referring to G.C.E. (O/L) results the CB said a majority of students who fail mathemetics will drop out from school and will be curtailed from receiving further education since mathematics is a prerequisite for most higher education programmes.

“According to the World Bank Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) survey-2012, 80 per cent of the employers expect the high- skilled workers to possess English language skills while 40 per cent of the employers expect the same from low-skilled workers.”

The report pointed out that low pass rates for English language at G. C. E ( O/ L) indicate the lack of English proficiency among those who enter the labour market.

“Poor student performance at the

G.C.E. (O/L) examination in science, mathematics and English subjects can be attributed to shortages in skilled teachers and teacher deployment issues’, the report said.

The Central Bank pointed out that although the availability of science, mathematics and English teachers at the national level exceeds numbers recommended by the Ministry of Education (MOE), skilled teachers in these fields are below the recommended levels for science and mathematics.

“There are considerable disparities in skilled teacher availability across national and provincial schools as well as across regions indicating the issues in teacher deployment.”

For example, national schools have more than the required number of science teachers while provincial schools have a shortage. Both national and provincial schools in Western, Central, Southern and NorthWestern provinces have more than the required number of skilled English teachers, though schools in other provinces experience a dearth of skilled teachers for the subject.

Since a majority of the students who qualify for university entrance fail to enter universities primarily due to the lack of resources in the university system, Technical and

Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is expected to train potential new entrants to the labour market and upskill the existing labour force.

However, Sri Lanka’s TVET sector is plagued by a myriad of shortcomings resulting in lower efficiency of the sector in terms of meeting the country’s skill demand. Currently, the TVET sector is highly fragmented and poorly coordinated with a large number of state and non-state education providers (1,290 registered TVET institutions by end 2019), and numerous governing agencies with their own regulatory panels and procedures, the report added.

The Central Bank pointed out that there is no central planning mechanism for the TVET sector, the designing of training programmes, student enrolment, and quality standards and accreditations are not aligned with the country’s growth policies and labour market needs.

“Although the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) system has been introduced with the aim of defining training standards on the basis of occupational requirements, the quality assurance process in the TVET system is still not fully effective since many private TVET institutions are neither accredited nor registered.

“There are significant regional disparities in terms of availability of science A/L classes. For example, of the schools with A/L classes, the percentage of schools with the A/L science stream in Central, North Western, Uva and North Central provinces was as low as 26 per cent, 29per cent, 29 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively,” the report pointed out.