Demand for private tuition and English education in Sri Lanka increases
The demand for English-language education and private tuition in Sri Lanka has increased, a new UNESCO Report released today found.
The report found that private education has grown faster in South Asia than any other region in the world.
In Sri Lanka, the percentage of households spending on private tutoring increased between 1995 and 2016 from 41% to 65% of urban households and from 19% to 62% of rural households.
According to the report, in Sri Lanka, the focus of non-state institutions on graduates’ English language skills has been identified as an advantage relative to public institutions.
A key driving force behind the choice of international schools, besides access to education technology, international curriculum and flexibility, is the use of English and how it enhances future prospects.
The report found that in Sri Lanka, networks of international schools, such as Lyceum, have highly competitive admissions, teach an international curriculum and expect students to study at higher education institutions abroad.
A study conducted in four international schools in Sri Lanka showed that, in addition to English language and fluency, foreign curricula and certification mattered to parents. They also perceived access to education technology and online resources as beneficial. International schools offered flexibility in subject choices and parents said they thought their children’s education, general knowledge and social skills were markedly better than those of their public school counterparts (Wettewa, 2015). But a major concern is their use of foreign curricula, which produces a generation of Sri Lankans with knowledge about the outside world but little awareness of Sri Lankan history, culture and geography (Wettewa, 2016; Wettewa and Bagnall, 2017).
In Sri Lanka, about 71% of preschools are managed by private individuals and organizations, 7% by religious organizations, 3% by NGOs and only some 20% by government institutions (Sri Lanka Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, 2016). Since most childcare centres levy fees, affordable childcare is very limited. Children from wealthier households and urban areas (68%) are more likely to attend than children from rural (48%) and tea estate (44%) areas (Warnasuriya et al., 2020). Private preschools can have highly competitive entrance processes in urban areas, in response to parental demand for academic outcome
The report draws on the global comparative research by the Global Education Monitoring Report at UNESCO and six regional partners: BRAC; the Institute for Integrated Development Studies; the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka; Idara-E-Taleem Oaagahi (Centre of Education and Consciousness); the Center for Policy Research; and the Central Square Foundation. Combining the experiences of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it looks at occasions where the growing advent of private education has put equity under pressure but also at positive practices that have created cohesion across all actors involved.
Non-state actors are influential across all education levels in the region. In early childhood, the private sector is often the main provider, educating 93% of children in the Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance. At the primary level, private schools educate a quarter of students in Nepal, over a third in Pakistan and almost half in India. Low-fee private schools have flourished. Out of all new schools established in India since 2014, 7 in 10 are private independent schools. In Bangladesh, a quarter of primary and almost all secondary school enrolment is in private institutions. International schools have grown alongside the demand for English-language education, effectively doubling in Sri Lanka between 2012 and 2019.
Manos Antoninis, Director of the GEM Report said “There is no one way of designing an education system. The call this report makes does not cast judgement on what system to choose, but on how that system is shaped. Millions of children at this point would have no education at all if non-state actors had not arrived to fill the gap. But a magnifying glass should be put upon the arrangements so that the balance does not tip towards profit-making and business interests and away from the interests of the child.”
An accompanying online education website to the Report, PEER, managed by the GEM Report, contains profiles for every country in the region listing the regulations each have on non-state actors in the region. It shows that existing regulations focus more on non-state schools’ establishment and inputs than on equity and quality in the system.
Antoninis continued: “A large part of the reason for the growth of private education in the region is the fact that governments spend far less than the recommended 15% of total public expenditure on education. But this leaves a ticking bomb for the poorest who are increasingly faced with high costs to access an education that should normally be free. We hope this report will act as an urgent call for reflection on how we are building education systems and who is missing out”. (Colombo Gazette)
