There is a famous statement in the society, if one school is closed thousand prison will start. Responsibility of a school is create a good citizen for the society.
Today, there is a categorization for popular school culture. Therefore, emerge huge gap between rural schools and urban area schools. Children in the villages go to their nearby schools due to their poverty.
If student deduction were took place in the school, they will get action for close schools. This is very unfortunate situation.
According to statistic data in Ministry of Education in 2019, there are 10,165 government schools. Of these, 373 are national schools and 9792 are provincial schools.
Meanwhile, there are 5161 schools in the country with less than 200 students, and it was revealed at the Government Accounts Committee recently that many problems have arisen regarding the quality of those schools.
This was revealed at a meeting of the Committee chaired by Prof. Tissa Vitarana, Member of Parliament, to examine the performance of government schools where the number of students was relatively low. Members of Parliament BYG Ratnasekera, Dr. Upul Galappaththi, Tissa Attanayake, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya and a number of government officials were present on the occasion.
The Committee on Public Accounts has instructed the Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Prof. Kapila Perera to prepare a plan to develop the infrastructure facilities of government schools where the number of students is relatively low within four months.
The need arose to take immediate action to solve the water problem in these schools as well as the toilet problem. The committee also said that there was a resource disparity due to the lack of proper coordination for schools.
The Committee on Public Accounts also told the education authorities that the Code of Conduct on School Structure should be revised from time to time under the supervision of education administration experts.
The Committee pointed out the need to develop schools to change the attitude of parents towards schools in enrolling their children in schools.
The Committee emphasized that the commencement, closure and regulation of schools should be done in accordance with the Code of Conduct on School Structure and the Committee also focused on the importance of overseeing the implementation of such transfer orders when transferring teachers and principals to unpopular schools. .
The Committee also pointed out the need to implement special programs to improve the examination results of these schools as the examination results of a school are a major criterion for attracting students.
All schools should have an education administration report and it is advisable to base that report on the allocation of funds under various projects, said the Chairman of the Committee, Prof. Tissa Vitarana.
It was revealed at the Committee on Public Accounts that 93 schools were closed from 2013 to 2017 due to lack of students, the prevailing situation in the country and other reasons. In 2018 alone, 101 schools were closed.
It was also discussed at the committee meeting that the students studying in government schools where the number of students is relatively low are suffering due to the lack of opportunity to choose the secondary subject category subjects at their discretion. The main reason for this is the lack of teachers in many of these schools. The Committee also revealed that the lack of teachers for the primary sector is another problem faced by government schools where the number of students is relatively low.
An amount of Rs. 64,930 million had been allocated for the “Nearest School, Best School” project implemented during the last government period (for the period 2016-2020) and as at 31 December 2018, Rs. 31,234.77 million had been spent under that project. It was also discussed in the committee that resources had been given to schools without studying.
Although at least 02 acres of land is required to set up a new school, it has been revealed at the committee meeting that there are about 25 schools in the Nikaweratiya Education Zone alone with less than 200 students who do not have that space.