“A LIRNEasia focus study conducted in Gampaha during Sri Lanka’s second pandemic lockdown last year found that only 48 per cent of households with children had access to a smartphone or a computer and only a third of households with children had an internet connection. This (34 per cent) is on average: poorer, rural households are systematically worse off as the number drops to 21 per cent in the lowest socioeconomic group households.
Similarly, according to research conducted by the Education Forum, only 45 percent of the student population had access to online education, leaving 55 per cent of Sri Lanka’s children behind. The survey, conducted in November 2020, revealed that on average teachers were able to give real-time classroom experience using software such as Zoom to only 5 per cent of their students, and another 40 per cent were contacted via social media.”
Read the full article published on the Sunday Times by Tharushi Weerasinghe where she explains how “more than half of the Sri Lankan student population has had no access to education since the pandemic hit.”
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