By Wimal Nanayakkara:
Although Sri Lanka has provided universal free education since 1939, around one-fifth of poor children drop out of school after the age of 14 years and another-two thirds after the age of 16 years. Comparison of estimates based on the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES)-2012/13 and HIES-2016, conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), show only a marginal improvement.
With
the closure of schools following the COVID-19 outbreak and the sudden shift to
online learning, poor children with no access to e-learning opportunities risk
falling even
further behind. In this context, some proposals made in
Budget 2021 to improve the education system and reduce poverty will benefit
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