Performance Report – 2010 - Ministry of Finance and Planning

Lanka positioned in 44 th place in terms ofthe quality of the education system. Interms of the quality of primary educationand the quality of math and scienceeducation, Sri Lanka positioned in 42 ndand 41 st places consecutively.Source: Global Competitive Report 2008In junior secondary, grade 6 enrolment isabout 91% of the age cohort which is thehighest rate in South Asia and higher thansome of the South East Asian countries.The Survival rate to Grade 5 has increasedfrom 97.7 in 2007 to 98.2 in 2010. The NetEnrolment Rate in primary and secondarylevel were 99 and 91 respectively in 2010.Table 30 Performance of Students atGCE O/L and A/L – 2005 to 2009Year 2005 2010GEC A/L (percentqualified forUniversity Entrance) 102,854 142,415GEC O/L (percentqualified for GCEA/L) 146,862 182,630Recent studies have revealed that thepercentage of primary school childrenscoring over 50 percent for First Language(Sinhalese and Tamil), Mathematics, andEnglish has increased significantly overtime.Table 31 Cognitive achievement scoresProportion of students scoring over 50%2003 2007First Language 68.9 81.1Mathematics 66.5 81.5English 31.9 48.5The trend of GCE O/L pass rates, definedas students qualifying for the GCE A/L, ispositive and increasing. In 2005, only 47percent of candidates passed the GCE O/L.By 2010 the pass rate has increased to 58.8percent. The GCE A/L pass rates have alsoincreased from 43.7 percent in 2002 to 61percent in 2010. The percentage ofstudents who have passed in six or moresubjects with first language andmathematics in the G.C.E. (O/L) was 56percent in 2010.Table 32 Competitiveness indexes in theRegion (ranking out of 131 countries) –2008/09CountryQuality ofprimaryeducationQuality ofmath andscienceeducationQualityof theeducationalsystemSri Lanka 42 41 44India 80 17 37Thailand 64 55 53Malaysia 23 21 18Source: Global Competitive ReportA significant increase in the number ofteachers in schools was witnessed from2005 to 2010. This has resulted inimproving the student teacher ratio from21:1 in 2005 to 18:1 in 2010. About 3,238new appointments were made to Sri LankaTeachers Service in 2010 while 410English medium teachers were appointedto National Schools. Another 174 graduateteachers were appointed throughcompetitive examination.Also 235 officers have been recruited tothe Sri Lanka Teacher Educators’ Serviceto improve the governance of schoolnetwork. Moreover, 200 Sri LankaEducation Administrative Service officerswere promoted to Class I after a longperiod of time.The National Teacher Transfer Policy wasintroduced to maintain a systematicteacher transfers and enhance servicedelivery.The Department of National Planningprovided technical assistance in theformulation and negotiation of the WorldBank assisted thousand secondary schoolsdevelopment project.173