A school principal in the Galle area has been arrested over the alleged receipt of Rs. 250,000 as a bribe to admit two children to a school, Hiru News reported.
Investigators say the principal initially sought Rs. 600,000 — Rs. 300,000 for each child — before the sum was reduced to Rs. 300,000. Of the money handed over, Rs. 150,000 is said to relate to steps taken to admit one of the children to Grade 1.
The figures as reported describe a partial payment: Rs. 250,000 received against the Rs. 300,000 eventually agreed.
Hiru News did not name the principal or the school, say which agency made the arrest, or report whether the principal has been produced before a court.
Context
Admission to Grade 1 at sought-after government schools is among the most contested processes in Sri Lankan public education. Places are allocated under a points-based national scheme weighing residence, past-pupil status and other criteria, and the gap between demand and available seats at popular schools has made admissions a recurring focus of bribery complaints and interview-board disputes.
Update, September 8: the figures resolved
Daily Mirror has since published a fuller CIABOC account that reconciles the arithmetic left unexplained above. The school is Buonavista College, Galle, and the arrest was made by officers of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.
The payments were not a single negotiated sum but a sequence of escalating demands. On CIABOC’s account the principal first demanded Rs. 600,000 — Rs. 300,000 per child — from a Galle resident seeking places for two children. That was negotiated down to Rs. 300,000, of which Rs. 150,000 was demanded and paid as an initial instalment, after which one child was admitted to Grade 1 for the 2026 academic year.
The principal then allegedly sought a further Rs. 50,000 from the balance to facilitate the second child’s admission to Grade 8. Once that child was admitted, he allegedly demanded another Rs. 250,000 to complete the remaining admission procedures, and is said to have threatened to remove both children from the school if it was not paid.
The Rs. 250,000 was therefore a fresh demand made after the original Rs. 300,000 arrangement, not a partial payment against it — which is why the figures did not add up in the first reports. He was arrested while allegedly soliciting and accepting that final payment, inside a shop on the Galle–Habaraduwa road, and is to be produced before the Galle Magistrate’s Court.
