The Foundational Learning Crisis Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) are the basic skills every child should master by the end of Grade 3: understanding short texts, writing simple sentences, and performing basic arithmetic (UNICEF, 2022). Yet in low- and middle-income countries, about 70 percent of ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a short passage—a figure that rose sharply after COVID-19 (World Bank, 2022). Children who miss these skills early rarely catch up, limiting later learning and increasing the risk of dropout (UNICEF, 2022). Weak FLN ripples through a person’s life and a nation’s economy, constraining skill development, employment, and long-term growth (Obiakor & Newman, 2022). Sri Lanka reflects this pattern. 
The Foundational Learning Crisis Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) are the basic skills every child should master by the end of Grade 3: understanding short texts, writing simple sentences, and performing basic arithmetic (UNICEF, 2022). Yet in low- and middle-income countries, about 70 percent of ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a short passage—a figure that rose sharply after COVID-19 (World Bank, 2022). Children who miss these skills early rarely catch up, limiting later learning and increasing the risk of dropout (UNICEF, 2022). Weak FLN ripples through a person’s life and a nation’s economy, constraining skill development, employment, and long-term growth (Obiakor & Newman, 2022). Sri Lanka reflects this pattern. 
AI and digital technology in education is a key research area for LIRNEasia. We are therefore keen to study cutting-edge research and best practices, and to translate these insights into policy and practice in Sri Lanka. In Journal Clubs, we take an in-depth look at a piece of existing literature to inform our research. On the 25th of August 2025, we evaluated the report titled ‘Understanding the Impacts of Generative AI on Children’, published by the Alan Turing Institute (ATI) in 2025. The research consisted of: Quantitative: Surveyed the perceptions and experiences around Gen AI by: a) Children and their parents or carers using a nationally representative survey with a sample size of 780 children aged 8-12. 
The journal club held on the 17th of April 2025 focused on the report ‘Leveraging Digital Public Infrastructure for Building Inclusive Social Protection Systems’ by Priya Vedavalli, Nikita Kwatra, Sharmadha Srinivasan, and Vikram Sinha of Artha Global published in April 2024. Background Portability of social protection, defined as the ease at which beneficiaries can retain access to social protection when they move across geographic lines, is a significant issue in India. This concerns over 400 million Indians (almost a third of the population) who are internal migrants, for whom accessing government services becomes a challenge due to a changing place of residence. The report explores how Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), which the authors define as “digital systems that provide identity, enable payments, facilitate the delivery of population-scale services by public and private actors, and other functions that are essential for the public good”, can be used to make social protection more portable, specifically in the context of India. Overview of the Report The authors focus on three federally governed Indian social protection schemes: Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) – India’s largest social protection scheme, which provides subsidized grains through fair price shops.