Sri Lanka’s financial literacy rate has risen from 35% to 58%, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said on Monday, crediting measures taken by the government.
She was speaking as chief guest at the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) at the World Trade Center in Colombo, the Daily Mirror reported.
The government’s aim, she said, was to ensure that knowledge of money and the financial system was not confined to a select group but accessible to all citizens.
“Our objective is to empower every citizen with the awareness needed to manage their earnings effectively, save properly, invest with an understanding of risks, and avoid falling victim to fraudulent financial schemes,” she said.
A new school subject
Amarasuriya said the government was focusing particularly on schoolchildren and was moving to introduce “Entrepreneurship and Financial Literacy” as a new subject area for Grades 6 to 9 under the revised school curriculum.
She also pointed to the “Stock Market Game” and school-based capital market clubs as ways for young people to gain practical experience of entrepreneurship and investment early, and said the government wanted to create new investment opportunities for the younger generation beyond traditional savings.
“Let us foster a culture of sound financial literacy within society, not merely to secure marks in an examination, but to benefit throughout one’s entire life,” she said.
She urged young people to create opportunities rather than wait for them.
The event
The ceremony included the launch of the Stock Market Game programme and the unveiling of a commemorative cover and stamp marking the CSE’s 40th anniversary. The Prime Minister rang the bell to open trading.
CSE Chief Executive Rajeeva Bandaranaike and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Senior Professor D.B.P.H. Dissabandara were among those present.
The market that day
The opening bell the Prime Minister rang began a losing session. The All Share Price Index fell 168.38 points, or 0.81%, to close at 20,644.26 on turnover of Rs. 3.16 billion.
Not reported
The filing does not say over what period financial literacy rose from 35% to 58%, who measured it, or by what method — a 23-percentage-point move is large, and no survey, baseline year or issuing agency is named. Sri Lanka’s financial-literacy work is run by the Central Bank under the National Financial Literacy Roadmap (2024–2028), a pillar of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, which the Central Bank has been extending with UNDP support; the report does not say whether the 58% figure comes from that programme’s measurement.
Nor does it give a start date for the Grades 6–9 subject, or say whether it will be compulsory or optional.
No other verified newsroom was found carrying its own report of Monday’s CSE anniversary event. Ada Derana published a filing on the schools curriculum element, but its site has returned a CloudFront block for eleven consecutive days and could not be read or dated. Searches for the Grades 6–9 financial literacy subject return mainly earlier editions of that proposal from 2025 and before, not Monday’s event.
