Is Sri Lanka on track to achieve the Education for All Goals (EFA) set out at the World Conference on EFA in Jomtien in 1990 and reaffirmed at the Dakar education forum in 2000? To what extent have Jomtien and Dakar influenced primary education policies in Sri Lanka? What lessons can the international community learn from Sri Lanka’s experience?

A report from the Institute of Education, University of London, analyses Sri Lankan educational policy and planning, emphasizing the influence of policy and politics on the technical contents and process of planning. It describes in detail how Sri Lanka’s five year plan for primary education was created during the Jomtien-Dakar decade. Sri Lanka’s push towards EFA follows an impressive history of educational achievement stretching back to the colonial era. Attainments in education, literacy and life expectancy have been praised internationally. In 1994 Sri Lanka had the same Human Development Index ranking as South Africa, a nation whose per capita GNP was five times greater.

At the time of Jomtien, EFA achievements were already high. In recent years Ministry of Education data show that net enrolment rates have further improved but have not reached 100%. Aggregate adult literacy rates (90%) have approached a high level of gender parity, though the parity index remains low for socially disadvantaged groups in Sri Lanka's multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual society.

The research finds many resonances between Sri Lanka's five year plan and the Dakar criteria for national action plans, even though the development of the five year plan preceded the Dakar conference. The report also shows that:

• Donors, UN agencies and international banks operating in Sri Lanka have been more enthusiastic than the Sri Lankan authorities about promoting EFA.
• Sri Lanka, like many states, has had trouble preparing EFA country assessments due to mismatch between education ministry data and that required by the EFA Forum Secretariat at UNESCO HQ in Paris.
• As the ministry of education has only recently become involved in early childhood care and development, there are a number of other state agencies involved and coordination is weak.
• Sri Lanka’s educational planning involves a wide range of stakeholders: eight provincial plans were developed prior to and fed into the national primary education plan.

Wider lessons from the Sri Lankan experience highlight the importance of:

• relating national EFA plans to education plans developed at the levels to which authority for planning and finance have been devolved
• borrowing selectively from the ideas and experience of the international EFA community: EFA is most likely to be achieved when it has commitment from local educators, not providers of finance
• accompanying national EFA plans with revised and detailed plans for curriculum developers, teacher educators and teachers
• realising that countries like Sri Lanka with records of EFA achievement have much to contribute to, not just take from, the international knowledge base on EFA
• choosing appropriate and local language(s) in the development, writing and dissemination of plans
• seeing national EFA plans as a portfolio of complementary plans prepared by more than one ministry and not as a plan developed especially to meet the criteria set by international agencies.

Source(s):
‘Education for all: policy and planning lessons from Sri Lanka’ by Angela W. Little, DFID Education Paper 46, January 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Self-funded

id21 Research Highlight: 2 December 2003

Further Information:
Angela W. Little
Lifelong Education and International Development
Institute of Education
University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H OAL
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6000
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6126
Contact the contributor: a.little@ioe.ac.uk

Institute of Education, University of London, UK

DFID Education Publication Despatch
PO Box 190
Sevenoaks TN14 5EL
UK

Contact the contributor: dfidpubs@eclogistics.co.uk

DFID Education Publication Department, UK

Other related links:
'Two years after Dakar: on the road to EFA?'

'Class struggles: the challenges of achieving schooling for all' Insights Education #2

See id21's links to other sites on acheivement and schooling for all

'Basic education at a distance – new strategies for achieving Education For All'

See the latest UNESCO EFA Report 2003/2004