A country's education system plays a pivotal role in promoting economic growth and shared prosperity. Sri Lanka has enjoyed high school-attainment and enrollment rates for several decades. However, it still faces major challenges in the education sector, and these challenges undermine the country's inclusivegrowth goal and its ambition to become a competitive upper-middle-income country. The authors of Sri Lanka Education Sector Assessment: Achievements, Challenges, and Policy Options offe...

Despite armed internal conflict and the global financial crisis, Sri Lanka has made remarkable progress in recent years, enjoying healthy economic growth and substantially reducing poverty. Moreover, Sri Lankans are the best-educated people in South Asia, with widespread access and high completion rates in primary and secondary education. Economic growth and structural changes in the economy, however, make skills development imperative as Sri Lanka implements its plan—the Mahinda Chintana ...

For the past decade, most South Asian countries have directed their efforts towards achieving universal access to elementary education. While these investments have led to more children being retained in school, they have not translated into better learning outcomes. This report comprehensively analyzes the performance of South Asian educational systems in terms of student learning. It attempts to answer three questions: •How well do education systems in South Asia perform? •What determine...