China has announced it will donate 1,000 smart boards to schools throughout Sri Lanka, according to Education Minister Susil Premajayantha. This announcement follows an Indian grant initiative that recently set up 200 smart classrooms equipped with 2,200 smart tablets in the Southern Province. The government of President Ranil Wickremesinghe is accelerating the digitization of the education sector and plans to provide teacher training for the new technology-driven education system. This development comes as opposition leader Sajith Premadasa also proposes smart classrooms for schools ahead of the upcoming presidential elections later this year.
“Digitization of the education sector is one of the reforms we have planned. We have already started it. Accordingly, there will be 1,250 clusters established. All the school systems will be included in these 1,250 clusters; one cluster will consist of 8-10 schools”, Minister Premajayantha told reporters at a news briefing in Colombo.
“We will be providing 2,500 high-tech smart boards for all the key schools enabled with the internet before September. We have taken the initial steps for that. We are getting a grant for that from China”. “The President through TRC (Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) from the Ministry of Technology will be providing 1,500 (smart boards) and 1,000 will be from the grant”, he said.
President Wickremesinghe is preparing to run in a major independent coalition, with Premadasa likely to be his primary competitor. The Election Commission of Sri Lanka is anticipated to announce the date for the presidential election by the end of July. On July 8, President Wickremesinghe distributed digital equipment funded by an Indian grant worth 300 million Sri Lankan rupees ($1 million) for the creation of 200 smart classrooms in the Southern Province.
Premadasa, leader of the main opposition center-right Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), has already distributed approximately 350 smart classrooms worth over 300 million rupees to schools nationwide. His aides anticipate that this initiative will boost his chances in the upcoming election. President Wickremesinghe, leader of the center-right United National Party (UNP), which supports liberal policies, has not yet officially announced his candidacy for the presidential race. The election is expected to be scheduled between September 17 and October 16.
“The 1,250 schools will be connected to the internet in the first phase. In the next phase, we will be connecting the rest of the schools. So within the next three years we will be completing the digitization. More than half (of the schools) are already given fiber optics. We have been planning with teacher training to prepare for this”, he said.
The Smart Classrooms initiative in the Southern Province is being carried out under the Indian bilateral High Impact Community Development Project framework. This framework encompasses 18 grant projects across various sectors in all 25 districts of Sri Lanka, with a total value of approximately 5.5 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($18.3 million). Informal and somewhat opaque surveys indicate that Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, leader of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP), and Premadasa are currently leading in popularity, with Wickremesinghe trailing behind.
