Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya has opened a specialised aesthetic-education school in Galle, arguing that arts teaching produces not only artists but professionals with empathy in every field.
“We need doctors who can understand the pain of their patients and engineers who have a strong sense of humanity,” she said at the inauguration of Bataduwa Sri Rathanajothi Vidyalaya, the Southern Province school set up to identify and develop children’s artistic talents, the Daily Mirror reported.
Education should not stop at passing examinations and collecting certificates, the Prime Minister said. It should produce citizens who understand the society around them and take responsibility for changing it. Aesthetic training builds creativity while teaching empathy, respect for diversity and an understanding of other people’s experience, Hiru News reported.
The economic argument
Amarasuriya put a second, blunter case for the arts: they are an industry.
The education reforms now underway would open routes into digital art, new media, film, music technology and the wider creative industries, she said — fields that did not exist as careers a generation ago. The reforms are intended to prepare Sri Lankan students for employment markets that are changing faster than the curriculum has.
Grades 2 and 6 confirmed for next year
The Prime Minister said arrangements have been made to roll the reforms out to Grades 2 and 6 in 2027.
Cabinet approved the supporting documents on 28 September: the 13-year curriculum framework, the National Education Commission’s concept paper, and the student assessment framework. We reported that decision yesterday. Amarasuriya holds the education portfolio herself, as Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education, and presented the proposal in that capacity.
Grade 1 began the new curriculum this year. Grade 6 had originally been scheduled alongside it for 2026, but was postponed to 2027 by a Cabinet decision in January.
”A period of transformation”
Amarasuriya framed the opening against two recent Sri Lankan successes. A Sri Lankan film has been selected for submission to the Academy Awards for the first time, and athlete Rumesh Tharanga won gold in the javelin at the Asian Games on Monday. The country is going through a period of transformation and awakening, she said.
She said she hoped the new Bataduwa school would be a starting point for Sri Lankan students to succeed internationally, and encouraged pupils to use the opportunities now opening up abroad.
Not reported
Neither outlet says how many students the school will take, which aesthetic subjects it will offer, what it cost or who funded it. Neither reports whether it is a new building or a converted existing school, whether more such schools are planned in other provinces, or how specialist teachers for it were recruited. Neither gives the date of the January Cabinet decision that moved Grade 6 to 2027, and neither says what the “13-year curriculum framework” covers that the previously reported National Curriculum Framework did not.
