Access, Attendance and Achievement in Rural Schools in Sri Lanka

Historically, Sri Lanka has performed well on most indicators of progress towards Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals. Nationally, enrolment in some form of pre-school provision is high, enrolment in primary education near universal and completion of nine years of compulsory, basic education is around 90%. At the same time, achievement levels are low, with disparities between provinces, type of school attended, location, medium of instruction and gender. This monograph records research undertaken in three diverse rural communities comprising 397 households, 1,952 household members and 657 children aged 5-16 years. Household survey interviews were complemented by interviews with local officials, school principals and teachers and by analysis of school records. School level practices designed to improve attendance and achievement are described. The CREATE model and its Zones of Exclusion are used to describe the inclusion/exclusion status of these 657 children. Descriptive statistics are used to describe inclusion and exclusion in Zone 0 (excluded from pre-schooling), Zone 1 (never-enrolled and unlikely to attend school), Zone 2 (drop out before completion of primary education), Zone 4 (non transition from primary to secondary) and Zone 5 (dropout before completion of secondary). Ordinary Least Squares and Community Fixed Effects regression models are used to assess the predictive power of a range of household and child characteristics in Zones 3 and 6 (at risk of dropout for reasons of low attendance, repetition and low achievement and silent exclusion from learning in primary and secondary education respectively). Our findings suggest that there are strong rural community effects in the prediction of absenteeism and attendance at private tuition. Within communities, student achievement at Grade 5 performance is associated positively with the vernacular literacy level of the adult household member and attendance at private tuition. Performance on school-based tests is associated negatively with absence from school and household size, and positively with education assets at home and adult literacy in the vernacular and in English. Performance in the GCE O level examination is associated with the housing index, with private tuition and with adult literacy in English. Attendance at private tuition is associated positively with the availability of education assets at home and negatively with household size. Absenteeism is associated with economic status, as indicated by a housing index, and health problems. The main challenges facing Sri Lanka currently lie in increasing the achievement levels of all social groups and in reducing dropout in the early secondary grades. Disparities need to be reduced between girls and boys, between urban and rural areas, between school types and between income groups in terms of enrolment in junior secondary and senior secondary education. Conceptually the study adds to the CREATE model through a modification of the definition of Zones 3 and 6. In the Sri Lankan case dropout rates are very low and the reasons appear to be related to the child’s ‘dislike of school’ and household factors. Dislike of school may in turn be related to low achievement and absenteeism, though probably not repetition. It is suggested that Zones 3 and 6 be extended to 3A and 6A to refer to those who are at risk of remaining in school but dropping out of learning because of a failure to achieve sufficient learning at one level in order to learn effectively at the next