The government plans to allocate close to Rs. 42 billion to improving the quality of vocational education in Sri Lanka over the 2027-2031 period, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya has said.
Rs. 4 billion of that total is expected to go to the Vocational Training Authority (VTA), the Prime Minister said. She holds the education portfolio as Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education.
Amarasuriya said the government’s objective is to turn the VTA into a leading centre of excellence in every province, so that students can pursue their educational and career goals through high-quality vocational training.
She made the remarks at the fifth diploma award ceremony of the Vocational Training Authority of Sri Lanka, held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo on Wednesday.
Context
The allocation follows a policy line the government has pursued since taking office, which treats technical and vocational training as a route of equal standing to conventional university study rather than a fallback.
The administration announced in July that it intends to establish 50 vocational universities within two years, a programme framed around the same argument — that skills mismatches and an over-reliance on academic degrees have left employers short of trained technicians even as graduate unemployment persists.
The five-year timeframe places the bulk of the spending beyond the 2027 financial year, meaning the allocations will fall to be confirmed in successive annual budgets.
Amarasuriya has made education reform a recurring theme in recent public appearances, telling the Organisation of Professional Associations’ annual convention a day earlier that clearing the economic crisis was only a foundation for deeper institutional change.
NewsFirst did not report a breakdown of how the balance of the Rs. 42 billion would be distributed across the vocational education sector.
