Five initial proposals submitted on education reform
03-Nov-2025.
Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) Leader Mano Ganesan presented five preliminary proposals at the meeting of the Education Reform Sub-Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, held at the Parliamentary complex.
According to a TPA press release:
1. Plan to close small schools
The proposed plan to close schools with low student enrollment should be suspended in the hill country. Decisions taken without considering the region’s terrain and population density will worsen the student dropout rate.
2. Colombo national schools
The number of Tamil-medium classes in leading national schools such as Royal, D.S. Senanayake, and Isipathana should be increased. Currently, the ratio of Sinhala to Tamil classes is roughly 12 to 2. Increasing Tamil classes will allow Tamil-medium students in Colombo better access to quality education and foster national unity by providing opportunities for Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim students to learn under one roof.
3. Educational administration for Tamil schools
The Ministry is currently reviewing the education sector’s administrative cadre. At each of the nine provincial levels and within zones having multilingual schools, new Assistant Directors of Education (ADE) posts must be created. These officers will serve as channels for administrative and specific issues concerning Tamil schools and teachers.
4. Educational upliftment of hill-country Tamil students
Treating both underprivileged and relatively advanced communities on an equal basis is inappropriate. Considering the educational backwardness in the hill country, the government must implement a special allocation policy to provide additional human and physical resources to plantation-sector schools to raise their standards to national level.
5. Need for teachers in special subjects
In districts of southern Sri Lanka where Tamil-medium schools exist — such as Kegalle, Ratnapura, Matara, Galle, Kandy, Matale, Nuwara Eliya, Kalutara, Colombo, Gampaha, Moneragala, Badulla, Kurunegala, and Puttalam — there is a severe shortage of teachers for subjects like Science, Mathematics, Technology, Engineering, English, Accounting, and Commerce.
A Tamil-medium teacher-training institute should therefore be established, with possible assistance from the Indian government, dedicated to training teachers for these subjects, especially to serve the underdeveloped hill-country education sector.
MP Mano Ganesan further stated that Prime Minister Amarasuriya assured him his concerns had been noted and that plans to close schools were temporarily suspended.
He added that he intends to hold further consultations with Tamil education experts and the Education Minister to incorporate additional proposals addressing Tamil-medium education needs in the education reform program.
