Half of a Sri Lankan student’s assessment would come from continuous work and half from end-of-course examinations under a 50:50 model proposed in the government’s education reforms, the Education Ministry has said.

The proposals were discussed at the Subcommittee on Education Reforms at Parliament on 9 September, chaired by Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, who also holds the Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education portfolio, the Daily Mirror reported.

Two changes to how results are calculated

The first is the 50:50 split itself — continuous assessment carrying equal weight with summative assessment. Sri Lanka’s public examination system has historically been dominated by terminal examinations, and an equal weighting would be a substantial shift in what counts towards a student’s record.

The second is the replacement of the existing Grade Point Average with a Weighted Average Marks system, with final results calculated according to the nature of different subject areas — meaning subjects would not necessarily contribute equally to a student’s overall result.

Three documents heading to Cabinet

Ministry Secretary Nalaka Kaluwewa presented a progress report to the subcommittee. The Ministry has now received three framework documents:

All three are to be submitted to Cabinet for approval. The Daily Mirror does not say when.

Where the rollout stands

The reforms are currently being implemented for Grade 1. Programmes for Grades 2 and 6 are scheduled to begin in 2027.

That staged approach is consistent with the rest of the package. The Prime Minister said earlier this week that school bags will get lighter under a new module system, with textbooks split into term-length modules rather than issued as full-year volumes.

The preschool strand

The same subcommittee meeting covered the other end of the system. Islandwide preschool development activities are to be implemented by 2027 under a new Early Childhood Curriculum Framework and Teacher Guidelines, the Daily Mirror reported separately.

The Prime Minister instructed officials to keep preschool development in line with national policy, and stressed raising the professional quality of preschool teachers to match the new framework — teacher capacity being the constraint that usually determines whether an early-years curriculum reaches classrooms.

That 2027 date is not new. Amarasuriya set the same 2027 timeline for preschool reform in May, naming the same Early Childhood Curriculum Framework and teachers’ guide. Four months on, the target has held rather than slipped — worth noting on a reform programme where dates often move.

The preschool framework and the school assessment frameworks are on the same route: Cabinet approval.

Not reported

The Daily Mirror does not say what forms of continuous assessment would count towards the 50%, who would moderate them, or how consistency would be maintained across schools of very different resourcing — the standard difficulty with school-based assessment at national scale. It does not say whether the 50:50 model would apply to the G.C.E. Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations or only to school-level certification, which is the distinction that determines how far-reaching the change is.

Nor does it state which subject areas would be weighted more heavily under the Weighted Average Marks system, when either change would take effect, or whether teachers’ unions and principals have been consulted. No cost or training estimate is given.

On the preschool programme, the report does not say how many preschools are covered, what the programme costs, how preschool teacher training will be delivered or by whom, or whether the framework applies to private and community preschools as well as state-run ones.

Update (September 14): materials prepared, and the subject structure emerges

The Daily Mirror returned to the subcommittee’s work on 14 September, reporting preparations for the 2027 implementation as “well underway”. It describes the account as coming from a “recent meeting” of the Subcommittee on Education Reforms, again chaired by the Prime Minister, without giving a date — so it is not clear whether this is a further readout of the 9 September meeting or a later one.

Materials. Activity books, teacher guides and modules for Grades 2 and 6 have already been prepared, and teacher training programmes are in progress. That puts the two grades named above as starting in 2027 further along than the earlier report indicated.

The subject structure. Seven subjects, including History and Aesthetic Studies, are named for the G.C.E. Ordinary Level examination. Vocational education will be introduced for students in Grades 10 and 11, and modules covering social cohesion, law and ethics are planned for Grades 12 and 13. This is the first indication of how the package reaches the upper grades, though it still does not answer whether the 50:50 assessment model applies to the O/L and A/L examinations — the question left open below.

Ada Derana carried the same subcommittee readout under its Grades 12 and 13 angle, but its site returned a CloudFront 403 and could not be cited.

Update (September 15): NewsFirst confirms the readout — and the seven subjects are a cut, not an addition

NewsFirst filed its own account of the same Subcommittee on Education Reforms meeting on 15 September, corroborating the Daily Mirror on every element above: the Grades 10–11 vocational strand, the social cohesion, law and ethics modules for Grades 12 and 13, and the prepared activity books, teacher guides and modules for Grades 2 and 6 alongside ongoing teacher training. It confirms the meeting was chaired by Prime Minister and Education Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya.

It also corrects the direction of the change. The Daily Mirror’s phrasing left it ambiguous whether seven subjects were being introduced. NewsFirst is explicit: the plan is to reduce the total number of G.C.E. Ordinary Level subjects to seven, including History and Aesthetic Studies. That is a contraction of the O/L subject load, not an addition to it — a materially different reform, and the more consequential reading for students and teachers.

NewsFirst dates the implementation start to next year, consistent with the 2027 timeline reported throughout.

Neither outlet says which subjects are dropped to reach seven, whether the seven are all compulsory or include optional slots, or how the reduction interacts with A/L stream prerequisites — the questions that determine what the cut actually costs a student.

Preschool. A National Preschool Education Policy has been formulated to formalise preschool education. Work is underway on the registration of preschools, preparation of curricula and teacher guides, and teacher training. Registration is a new element: the earlier report covered the curriculum framework but not a move to bring preschools onto a register.

Awareness. A series of programmes for teachers, parents and other stakeholders is to be run in the coming months.

The Grade 6 hold. The Daily Mirror notes that the government had earlier put the proposed Grade 6 reforms on hold after strong protests over the inclusion of a reference to a sex website in a Grade 6 English language module. The report does not say whether that hold has now been lifted, or whether the prepared Grade 6 materials are revised versions.

Sources