The government is working to implement the World Bank proposal to close schools under the guise of education reforms, said Duminda Nagamuwa, executive member of the People’s Struggle Alliance.
He also said that his party has received information that the Thambuttegama school, where the current president studied, is also to be closed under this.
He said this at a media briefing held by the People’s Struggle Alliance in Nugegoda.
Speaking at the event, Duminda Nagamuwa also said:
“The government has only made a presentation on education reforms.
There is no specific report yet.
As far as we know, this is the first time in the history of Sri Lanka that a government has proposed a complete reform of the entire education system of the country using a presentation.”
In his speech in Parliament, Mr. Anura Dissanayake spoke very emotionally about schools with low student numbers in Sri Lanka. He said that there are 3141 schools with less than 100 students. He said that they are ready to close some schools, merge some schools and establish new schools where necessary.
At first glance, no one understands the danger of this statement.
Mr. Karunasena Kodituwakku has previously made a speech similar to Mr. Anura Dissanayake’s speech in Parliament.
He was the first person to propose the closure of 3000 schools in Sri Lanka.
At that time, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna also fought against the program.
The Save Schools Movement was created to protect schools. Even today, its chairman is Mahinda Jayasinghe, who is a current government minister. They are now all preparing to implement the World Bank proposal to close schools, saying, “Will we ever do things like that? Don’t you trust us?”
“Of course we don’t”, said Duminda Nagamuwa.
Now the government is saying that they will close some schools and open new schools when it’s necessary. But we are asking the government to show where the budget has been allocated for the opening of new schools.
Therefore, the story about opening new schools is a complete lie.
They are preparing to close existing schools.
According to the information we have received, even the Thambuttegama school, where the President studied, is going to be closed in this way. The President says that we will close the school and provide free buses to other schools.
Now the President is behaving like a wealthy man.
We remember that during the election campaign, he made the same bold, arrogant statement that it’s easy-peasy for him to acquire 50 USD billion.
The president who does not remove VAT for children’s school equipment. Can we trust a President who provides free buses to rural children?
There are a number of serious problems in the education system today.
These new reforms do not seem to provide a definitive solution to them. When considering a school in Colombo and a school in the rural hills, “there is a huge disparity. The government should formulate a policy to eliminate this disparity in terms of facilities, human resources, and physical resources. Otherwise, the government has no right to arbitrarily close schools,” said Duminda Nagamuwa.
