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On Monday afternoon, a group gathered in front of the Indian High Commission in Colombo, Sri Lanka to show solidarity with the student protesters in India. Displayed on the placards were messages asserting the right to peaceful protests and Dr. Ambedkar’s widely known clarion call, “Educate, agitate, organise.”

Celebrating on the streets after the Union education minister resigned from his post, Indian youth had once again infused hope that collective, creative and non-violent organising can still lead to some wins. As the protests spread to different cities in India and abroad, commentators began making comparisons between the mass movements in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. 

Although the nature and scope of the Indian students’ protest differed from Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (struggle) in 2022, it struck a special chord with Sri Lankans. The political satire and sentiments conveyed through the imagery of cockroaches and the heart wrenching testimonies by families of student victims of the examination paper leaks for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) easily translated across the border. 

Sri Lanka’s education crisis

Indian students have brought to light an issue that is plaguing education systems all across our region. Sri Lanka’s public education system too has its own highly competitive examinations – the Grade-5 Scholarship and the G.C.E. Advanced Level Examinations – causing much stress and anxiety among students, parents and teachers. Only about a quarter of the students who qualify in the university entrance examination are admitted into the Sri Lankan public universities. 

Although India liberalised its economy more than a decade after Sri Lanka, the privatisation and commodification of India’s education system expanded at a much faster and dizzying pace, exacerbating the inequalities.

Sri Lanka gained by retaining the public provision of free education and free health and achieved higher Human Development Indicators (HDIs) in comparison to other countries in the region. Yet, those early gains are now being slowly eroded through underfunding the system. 

Sri Lanka is one of the lowest ranked in South Asia in terms of its GDP allocations for its education sector – a mere 2% of GDP in 2026. Much like in India, there is cut-throat competition to secure a place in a public university.

Even as the desired public funding to expand higher education opportunities to keep in step with the growing demand has been restricted, reliance on high-stakes testing in our countries has increased. More students are forced to compete for fewer and fewer seats in degree programmes. The unregulated and lucrative tuition networks have also expanded.

The debates around NEET entrance exams for medical programmes in India is a timely warning as Sri Lanka grapples with the future of medical education. Sri Lanka’s free public health system currently absorbs all the public university medical graduates, ensuring guaranteed employment. One would imagine that safeguarding and strengthening such a system would be a policy priority.........

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