Reform without responsibility
By Vox Civis
Education has always occupied a uniquely combustible space in Sri Lanka’s political arena. It is not merely a sector of public policy but a repository of social aspiration, class anxiety, ideological struggle and also generational sentimentality. Few issues arouse as much emotion, suspicion or resistance as anything to do with education. In a country long used to boast about its 95% literacy rate, free education from kindergarten to university and free meals, uniforms, textbooks and even higher education scholarships on the one hand and the disruptive antics of a particular political movement who made disruption its profession, on the other, education has always been a touchy subject.
That reality has been shaped, in no small measure, through decades of political mobilisation around education; mobilisation that consistently framed reform not as progress, but as betrayal. Ironically, the very political movement that perfected this art of resistance and disruption, now finds itself in government, preaching reform while struggling to practise accountability.
For more than four decades, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) resisted almost every serious attempt to reform Sri Lanka’s education system. Whether it was the introduction of foreign universities, private medical colleges, curriculum modernisation, or alternative pathways to higher education, the JVP stood at the forefront of protest. It mobilised students, shut down campuses, paralysed schools, and cast reform as an elite conspiracy against the poor. In doing so, it succeeded not merely in blocking policy, but in embedding a culture of suspicion toward any change that challenged the rigid, exam-centric, state-monopolised education model.
Clamour to be the champion of change
Today, under the banner of the National People’s Power (NPP), that same political movement is claiming to be the champion of reform; lambasting the Opposition for non-cooperation, demanding trust from teachers and parents, and insisting that its intentions are pure. Yet the unfolding Grade Six curriculum debacle exposes the deeper and more uncomfortable truth that reform without competence, consultation, or accountability will in no way amount to meaningful reform. In fact, the current reforms are increasingly being described as reckless.
The controversy surrounding the Grade Six English module is not, as government spokesmen would like to suggest, a trivial technical error inflated by political opponents. It is a symptom of systemic failure. An inappropriate web link embedded in a textbook for 11-year-olds is serious enough.
But what is far more alarming is how such an error passed through a process that supposedly includes 12 rounds of checking, multiple proof readings, institutional review by the National Institute of Education, and final verification before printing. When Rs. 60 million worth of textbooks are rendered unusable, the issue is no longer about embarrassment, but about governance and accountability.
The government’s explanation that a last-minute revision was made outside established procedures only deepens the crisis. It confirms that safeguards were bypassed, protocols ignored, and urgency allowed to trump responsibility. The claim that this was an isolated lapse does little to reassure parents or teachers when the entire Grade Six reform package has now been postponed until 2027. If the reforms were sound, if the process was robust, such a retreat would not have been necessary.
What has followed has been an all too familiar pattern in the recent past: swift action against a handful of officials, combined with an uncomfortable silence about political responsibility. Two NIE officials have been suspended, the Deputy Director General sent on compulsory leave, and the Director General has stepped aside pending inquiry. While administrative accountability is essential, it cannot become a convenient firewall protecting the political leadership.
Responsibility at the top
The Ceylon Teachers’ Union has rightly pointed out that responsibility does not end with middle-level officials. Decisions were made at ministerial and secretarial levels. Timelines were set, pressure applied and priorities determined by those at the top. Therefore, there is no escape for anyone involved from collective responsibility for the end product.
This is where the credibility of the NPP government is facing its most serious test, yet. For years, it built its political brand on an uncompromising rhetoric of accountability. Corruption, it said, was not merely about stolen money but also about abuse of power and absence of responsibility. Selective justice, the party argued, was worse than no justice at all. If that rhetoric is to mean anything now that it is in government, accountability must apply upwards, not merely downwards.
The growing perception that the police and investigative authorities are more focused on finding excuses than uncovering responsibility is therefore deeply damaging. If institutions appear to be bending over backwards to exonerate political leadership while swiftly disciplining officials with less power, the government’s much-touted anti-corruption drive risks becoming a hollow slogan – worse still, a liability. After all, public trust, once eroded, is never easily rebuilt.
The political fallout has already begun to take shape. The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) has announced its intention to bring a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister and Education Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya. While Opposition maneuvering is hardly unusual, the motion reflects a wider unease that extends beyond party lines. Even critics who are not opposed to reform in principle are questioning the manner in which these reforms were conceived and implemented in such a short time.
The government’s response has been revealing. The Prime Minister, fresh from attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, returned home and made a dramatic appearance in Parliament, joking that she had rushed back to face the no-confidence motion and mocking the Opposition for failing to submit it. The theatrics may have delighted party loyalists, but it was obvious that they sat uneasily alongside the gravity of the issue at hand. At the end of the day, education reform is not like a debating club exercise – like it was made out to be, but one that will shape the lives of millions of children for years to come.
PM’s profound statement
Yet, in the same breath, the Prime Minister made a statement of far greater consequence. She said that the day the people reject the government, she would not wait a minute longer and would go home. It was a commendable sentiment, one that echoed democratic humility. But it also stood in stark contrast to the conduct of the political movement she represents, where senior party leaders have been consistently insinuating that it would not leave without a fight – fair or otherwise. One only needs to visit the recent utterings of the likes of Minister Lalkantha and Mayor Jayalal, to confirm the fact. Besides, the party’s past refusal to accept electoral verdicts, most notably during the violent insurrection of the late 1980s, demands that these seemingly random utterings be not taken for granted.
Words matter, but so does institutional memory. Trust is built not on declarations alone, but on consistent conduct. The deeper tragedy in this episode is that Sri Lanka genuinely needs education reform. The statistics are unforgiving. Only about 15 percent of children who enter Grade One will eventually gain access to university education. The remaining 85 percent are left to navigate a system that offers few meaningful alternatives. Those with financial means increasingly opt out, seeking overseas education at enormous cost to the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Those without means often find themselves trapped in a cycle of underemployment, frustration, and wasted potential – the perfect stock candidates for the party’s protest movement that has wreaked havoc for decades.
Therefore, this is not a new problem. As far back as in 1982, the then UNP government attempted to introduce sweeping reforms aimed at aligning Sri Lanka’s education system with emerging global models. Had those reforms succeeded, Sri Lanka might well have followed a trajectory closer to Singapore than to stagnation. Instead, those efforts were met with fierce resistance, spearheaded by the JVP, culminating in a campaign of disruption that helped set the stage for a deadly insurrection just a few years later. The cost of that resistance was not merely political instability, but decades of lost opportunity.
Since then, every attempt to introduce meaningful higher education reform, whether through foreign universities, private medical colleges, or alternative accreditation pathways, has faced organised opposition. The rhetoric has always been the same: education must remain free, accessible, and state-controlled. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that the system that emerged from this resistance has served neither equity nor excellence. It has privileged a narrow academic elite while abandoning the majority.
A situation fraught with irony
That is why the current situation is so fraught with irony. A party that routinely weaponised education as a tool of resistance is now seeking to reform it from a position of power. But reform requires more than ideological conversion. It demands expertise, humility, consultation, and an acceptance that good intentions are no substitute for good governance.
The Grade Six episode has exposed a worrying gap between rhetoric and reality. Allegations that reforms were rushed without adequate stakeholder consultation have been consistently raised by teachers, principals, and unions. The Ministry’s belated assurance that a concept paper will now be opened for public discussion only reinforces the sense that consultation was an afterthought rather than the foundation. If the process was sound, why the sudden pause? Why the sudden openness to dialogue only after public outrage? Who is accountable for the millions of rupees wasted on the fruitless reforms? Where is the investigation?
Even more troubling have been the embarrassing public interventions by senior ministers that reveal a startling lack of basic understanding – the very individuals presiding over the so-called reforms. When a prominent minister, himself a self-proclaimed teacher, loudly dismissed concerns by claiming that the controversial reference to an adult website had existed in Grade 11 textbooks for years, while failing to distinguish between a messaging app and an adult website, the episode obviously underlines a deeper malaise. Rather than being merely a slip of the tongue, it displayed for all to see the profound ignorance of someone entrusted with shaping educational policy. If this is the level of comprehension at the top, it raises uncomfortable questions about the competence of those governing, as a whole.
The government insists there was no conspiracy, that the error was accidental, and that no other inappropriate content exists in the module. Perhaps that is true. But conspiracy is not the only explanation for failure. Incompetence, haste, ideological blind spots, and institutional arrogance are often far more dangerous because they are harder to confront.
Why fear scrutiny?
The call by the Ceylon Teachers’ Union for an independent inquiry, akin to a Presidential Commission, deserves serious consideration. Such an inquiry would not be an admission of guilt but a demonstration of seriousness. It would allow the entire reform process – from conception to implementation – to be examined transparently, without scapegoating and without political shielding. If the government is as confident in its intentions as it claims, it should have nothing to fear from such scrutiny.
Instead, the spectacle unfolding in Parliament over who decides the timing of a no-confidence motion, who is ready to debate, and who is posturing for advantage, risks trivialising a matter of national importance. Education reform should not be reduced to a tactical skirmish between government and Opposition. It should be a national conversation grounded in evidence, expertise, and empathy for students who will live with the consequences long after today’s politicians have left office.
The postponement of the Grade Six reforms until 2027 is, in effect, an admission that the process has failed in its current form. Money has been spent, teachers trained, timetables revised, and expectations raised, only for the entire exercise to be shoved in to the deep freezer. For parents and students alike, it not only amounts to an administrative inconvenience but yet another reminder that they are often treated as passive subjects rather than the active stakeholders that they are.
Ultimately, this episode will be remembered not for a obscene weblink, but for what it reveals about power, accountability, and memory. The NPP government has an opportunity, perhaps its last, early in its tenure, to prove that it is different from the political culture it consistently condemned. That difference will not be demonstrated through defiance, mockery, or selective punishment, but through humility, transparency, and a willingness to accept responsibility where it truly lies.
Education, more than any other sector, demands moral seriousness. It shapes not just economic outcomes, but civic values and social cohesion. To treat it lightly, or to weaponise it politically, is to gamble with the country’s future. The Grade Six fiasco therefore should not be considered a footnote, but in fact a profound warning. Whether the government chooses to heed it will determine not only the fate of its education reforms, but the credibility of its promise of system change itself.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication.
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