Anushka Kahandagamage
The recently unveiled education reforms have provoked considerable buzz among scholars, researchers, teachers, parents, and students. Everyone is seeking to contribute, but the government is proceeding without a consultative process or proper document, relying only on an evolving PowerPoint presentation. While the reforms remain obscure, the Education Minister has been issuing statements about how people should not rely on news regarding the reforms that are circulated on social media platforms.
Government Scholarships Programme
While the education reform blueprint stays hidden, the administration is moving fast with implementation. For example, one of the NPP election pledges was to ‘provide 200 scholarships every year for high school graduates to pursue degrees at globally ranked universities.’ As a first step towards achieving this objective, the Government has invited applications from outstanding performers from the recent Advanced Level Examination. A news item published in The Sunday Times (24th of August 2025), titled Applications open for scholarships to internationally ranked universities: ‘Twenty-five to fifty students who were high achievers at the Advanced Level exam from schools across the country will be picked to study at ranked international universities under the first phase of the government scholarships programme.’
As stated in the article, priority will be given to degree programmes that are not offered by local universities and that the government assumes will contribute to national development. It is not clear what the government’s idea of ‘development’ is, or why the government is incapable of introducing these new subjects into the local university system, rather than sending students abroad.
The scholarships will be fully funded, covering tuition and academic fees as well as a monthly stipend, health insurance, and one-time economy-class round-trip airfare, including local transportation to the nearest airport. The project aims to award a total of 200 scholarships, from 2025 to 2029, to place recipients in the top 500 universities in the world. Those influenced by neoliberal economic frameworks may believe that this project is excellent since it allows high-achieving students to study overseas. However, while this seems true on the surface, the ground realities may be different and this reform will likely have adverse consequences.
Celebrating Merit
In a meritocratic society, the success of high achievers is morally justified, and winners believe that they have earned their success solely through their talent and hard work. Through such a lens, high marks in exams, academic excellence, and awards, might seem like the sole success of the achiever. However, we live in an unequal society, and students’ access to resources, such as better schools, private tuition, transportation, food, and other basic requirements, varies, depending on their socioeconomic status, region, school, gender, ethnicity, and a variety of other factors. Thus, acquiring merit is not solely a matter of talent and hard work, but is conditioned by other socio-economic and political factors. However, in a meritocratic system, “merit” will be celebrated, disregarding these unequal opportunities. The selective system would impose an unnecessary burden on students, as there will be competition to be selected for the scholarship scheme.
Instead of recognising the diverse potential of each student and guiding them in the proper direction, the government’s plan to offer international scholarships to those who perform outstandingly at their A/Ls reinforces the current regressive meritocratic system. The meritocratic system begins with the Grade five scholarship exam and continues throughout general education until students reach university. However, not every student who passes the exam gets an opportunity to attend, due to a lack of universities in the country. This initiative of providing foreign scholarships contradicts the guiding principles mentioned in the Ministry of Education’s, education reforms PowerPoint slides, which includes ‘free education and equal access,’ as well as ‘acceptability for all.’ In other words, if the government intends to export ‘high-achieving’ A/L students abroad, it will contradict their commitment to building a less competitive education system, where everyone has equal acceptance.
Widening the Disparities
A meritocratic regime would deepen societal inequities. While more privileged students ,would have a better chance of achieving high merit, underprivileged students would have fewer opportunities to be among those selected for foreign degree programmes. The students who are unable to make it to the scholarships to go abroad, would remain in the underfunded Sri Lankan university system. Students from more affluent families would prefer enrolling in private universities with better facilities. In a few years, local university students, graduating from the underfunded state university system, will have to compete in the job market with foreign university graduates whose education was also funded by the state. It is important to remember that government funds are sourced from taxpayers’ money, contributed by both the privileged and the underprivileged. Therefore, when allocating these funds, the government should uphold transparency and justice.
In general, foreign-educated students have a higher chance of being appointed to decision-making positions and securing better jobs than local university graduates. And, in particular, as stated in the mentioned newspaper article, the government’s intention anyway is to utilise these graduates in the country’s development. In that sense, when recruiting for higher decision-making positions, the government will give priority to these graduates. The disparity created by short-sighted government education policies would push the country’s population into a long-standing cycle of inequality, affecting generations to come.
Discouraging the sustainability of Local Universities
Sending 25–50 students for undergraduate studies at the world’s top 500 institutions is a costly endeavour. The financing for these students will come from monies that could be used to improve the country’s higher education system. In that manner, this new venture would have a long-term impact on the country’s university system. Due to fewer funds allocated, the local universities will remain below standard. Against this background, the students who are unable to make it to the foreign-funded university list will probably have to enroll in local universities, which have been neglected or underfunded by successive governments. At the same time, the new initiative to send selected students abroad for education shows the government’s undervaluing of the existing university system and their incapability of improving it.
Perpetuating Colonial Structures
The foreign scholarship initiative reminds me of the colonial education policy on Ceylon. In 1870, the colonial government established a scholarship scheme to UK universities for one scholar. In 1907, the government expanded it for two scholarships, one for Arts and one for Science, in alternate years. Up until the year 1921, the avenues for higher education were largely confined to a colonial government funded scholarship programme that enabled a selected group of capable students to pursue their studies in the United Kingdom. Concurrently, the external degree examinations, offered by the University of London, created a pathway for a limited number of individuals to achieve academic credentials. Given how the British Empire approached higher education in its colonies, it did not invest in fostering critical thinking, or innovation, rather its primary goal was to produce a small group of intermediates—English-educated elites—who would serve colonial administration and governance.
The emphasis on sending students overseas for higher education guaranteed that knowledge, legitimacy, and power remained firmly rooted in Britain, but the great bulk of the local populace remained excluded from advanced education.
When seen in this manner, the contemporary scholarship project seems a continuation of the colonial structure. Both the colonial programme, and the current approach, prioritises training a small, privileged group overseas, while giving less priority to systemic investment in local institutions. In these circumstances, education is viewed not as a public good that should benefit society as a whole, but as a method of generating a small governing or decision-making elite. The fundamental consequence is the same: a cycle of inequality in which the majority of students are marginalised, while those with foreign credentials hold positions of power and influence.
Thus, the similarity is more than just superficial. Both regimes represent a governing ideology that prioritises selective elite development above comprehensive educational and social change. The present government’s scholarship scheme shows how firmly the colonial thinking is embedded in the country’s education rationale. Instead of democratising knowledge and investing in systemic development, such policies perpetuate educational hierarchies that benefit a selected few at the expense of the majority.
The Path to Success
The government is deliberately undermining the state university system by suggesting that our system is incapable of producing good students (not at all substantiated) and in the process makes a case for actively defunding higher education. The path to elevating the country’s higher education system both in quality and quantity would be to increase funding and introduce progressive reforms to both general education and higher education. Simultaneously, integrating updated knowledge and enhancing critical thinking across both general and higher education is crucial, from rewriting curriculum to supporting interdisciplinary learning, research, and innovation. Strengthening teacher training, improving infrastructure, extending digital resources, addressing inequalities to resources, and forging relationships with overseas institutions can all help to improve the system without having to export selective students for better education opportunities. By prioritising these fundamental improvements, the country can create a stronger higher education system that benefits the vast majority of its students, rather than favouring a small fraction through overseas scholarships.
