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We rendered a yeomen service to education - Susil Premjayanth

A landmark improvement was shown in the education sector during the last seven years. The Government spent the largest ever sum of money for education.

As a results number of students who passed the O/L Examination dramatically improved from 17.62 percent in 1994 to 40.85 percent in 2000. Students who passed A/L examination also improved by 100 percent. Number of students who failed all the subjects in O/L were 11.4 percent in 1994 and declined to 4.7 percent in 2000.

Measures were also taken to increased the number of students to 12,500 in 2000 from 8851 in 1994.

Since facilities were improved in schools number of children who passed the Grade Five scholarship program increased to 10,000 in 2000 from 7500 children in 1995.

The expenditure on Universities was also increased to Rs. 5089 million in 2000 from Rs. 2478 million in 1994. Four new universities were established. We decided to establish four new teacher colleges at a cost of Rs. 4050 million as well.

With the available facilities 70,000 teachers were trained between 1994 to 2000. After the completion of the four teacher training colleges and 84 other training centres, 30,000 teachers can be trained annually. Dearth of teachers in rural schools also rectified. One of the biggest achievements of the government was the setting up of the Sri Lanka Teachers' Service in 1995."

However, no one with clear sense can dispute our service to the education.

They only closed schools - Tissa Attanayake

There was no proper plan to develop the education sector during the last seven years. Education reforms was mere a white elephant.

Tug of war between Presidential Task Force official and the Minister was further aggravated the problems in education. Education Department failed to deliver the expected results due to this in-house conflict.

The Government's decision to close schools which had less than 35 students badly affected the rural students. For example in my electorate there are villages with similar schools.

After the closure of these schools the education of the children collapsed. They cannot walk miles and miles to another school.

To my knowledge over 700 such schools were closed. We receive investment on education for a longer period. But Government curtailed financial assistance. Free text books and uniforms were given to students in the last month of the year.

However, the free text books and uniforms were the concepts of the UNP. The PA did not come out with a clear creative plan.

In a nutshell, a huge setback was seen in the education sector when compared with other countries where they took a leap ahead.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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