The Ministry of Education will be launching an Emergency Response Programme as a long term initiative based on the experiences gained from the recent pandemic situation and the disruptions it had on the National Education System.
Ministry of Education, Additional Secretary (Education Quality Development), H. U. Premathilake said in a webinar organized by the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) recently that plans are under progress on how to change the school curriculum incorporating digital education methods. The programme will also focus on providing infrastructure and other facilities and trainings and awareness programmes on e-learning targeting both teachers and students with the support from National Education Institute (NIE) and the Departments under the Ministry.
Apart from that, parallel to the Manifesto of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education and Ministry of Skills Development and Vocational Training have been given aims to enhance the respective education sectors of the country and discussions are undergoing within the Ministries on the possible future approaches.
“We are also discussing on introducing a new education curriculum using blended learning techniques diverting the national educational curriculum from the typical traditional classroom,” he said. This will be released for public review and comments before the official launch.
He also said that they would be selecting schools with fewer facilities to provide distant learning opportunities with television programmes conducted for subjects such as Sinhala, Science and Maths. As the first initiatives about 2000 televisions have been given to selected schools across the Island and by next year the Ministry is expecting a target of about 3000 television distributions as a public private partnership.
With the declaration of 2021-2030 decade as the Decade of Skills Development is Sri Lanka, going forward with digital education is vital to achieve the targets of the education system of the country and reduce the percentage of non-skilled labour force.
Premathilake said that currently they have not set a time frame for students to engage in e-learning sessions due to the lack of infrastructure and other facilities affecting some of the students and teachers and once the education curriculum of the country is changed with the addition of digital practices with education more rules will be imposed to make digital education successful.
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