India doubles grant to upgrade nine plantation schools

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The Government of India (GOI) will double its grant support to upgrade nine schools in the plantation regions of Sri Lanka.

The GOI’s total commitment to the project now stands at Rs. 600 million with the additional funds infused at the request of the Government.

The High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Santosh Jha and the Secretary, Ministry of Education and Science and Technology, Mrs. J.M. Thilaka Jayasundara signed and exchanged diplomatic letters on Friday (October 18) to formalise modalities regarding the project.

The project envisages upgrading of infrastructure of nine plantation schools identified by the Government. These include six schools in the plantation areas of the Central Province and one school each in the Uva, Sabaragamuwa and the Southern Province, a media release issued yesterday by the High Commission of India stated.

The project would add to the long list of numerous past and ongoing development partnership initiatives of India in Sri Lanka in the education sector. Besides support for infrastructure development and equipment supply, training and capacity-building have formed an equally important focus area for India’s development cooperation projects in the sector in Sri Lanka.

Among the projects are renovation work in over 100 schools in the Northern Province; setting up 40 e-Libraries in the Southern and the Eastern Provinces; supply of 110 buses to educational institutions across the island; setting up of English Language laboratories in all provinces of the country; establishment and renovation of auditoriums at numerous institutions across the country, including the Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Auditorium at the Ruhuna University and construction of a multi-ethnic tri-lingual school in Polonnaruwa.

Steps will also be taken to support two vocational training institutes such as the Thondaman Vocational Training Centre in Hatton and the Vantharamullai and Onthachimadam Centres in the Eastern Province and the setting up of smart classrooms and computer labs in 200 schools in Galle.

A three-month teacher-training program in STEM subjects for plantation schools was also conducted recently under the multi-sectoral grant assistance of INR 750 million announced last year to mark 200 years of the arrival of the Indian-origin Tamil community to Sri Lanka.

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