The Central Province has slipped to 8th place in the national rankings for the 2025 G.C.E. Advanced Level examination, leaving only the North Central Province below it, the province’s Senior Assistant Education Secretary Prabath Maddumaarachchi has said.
Maddumaarachchi delivered the assessment at the 26th Professional Lecturers’ Meeting held at the City Hotel in Kandy. He linked the slide to a sharp drop in A-Level attendance at government schools, with students increasingly skipping classes to attend private tuition during school hours.
“When provincial authorities conduct school inspections, they often find A-Level teachers sitting idle because students are absent,” he said. “Principals report that students simply do not attend. A teacher cannot go to students’ homes to bring them to school.”
He said the unregulated private tuition sector — operating without an approved act or clear legal framework — has eroded the conditions teachers and principals work under. “The professional dignity and security of teachers and principals are currently facing a severe threat.”
Maddumaarachchi urged authorities to focus on the Arts and Commerce streams in particular, calling for skills development inside the school system as the only sustainable route to lifting the province’s ranking.
The 2025 A/L results, released in April 2026, saw 176,527 of 281,810 candidates qualify for university — a 62.6% pass rate nationally.
