Category Archives: 2024 Activities

Sri Lanka has been categorized as one off the most disaster-prone country in the region. Due to the
geographical location the island is more vulnerable to heavy rain flood and landslide. During the past few
decades the impact of climate change has been significantly increased and this situation has made a
negative impact every aspect of the social economic and condition of the people. As a result of the
adverse effects bad whether condition every year in some provinces schools has to be closed for several
days and the students encountered many difficulties in continuing their education. Although the
authorities have prepared Disaster Risk Reduction plans for the schools it could be observed that these
policies and procedures has not been implemented effectively. The knowledge and awareness of the
citizen on the existing policy frame work and procedures for disaster risk reduction and disaster
management is important to assess whether these policies and procedure and being implemented in the
ground level to ensure the benefits are being delivered to the community. To achieve this objective
Coalition for Educational Development conducted a capacity development programme for a group of civil
society actors including youth, media, teachers and community leaders.

The capacity building programme was held on 02 May 2024 in Colombo and the deputy director (Training
and Education) of Disaster Management Center (DMC) of Sri Lanka facilitated the training. A total
number of 32 people selected by CED member organizations participated for this event

• The main objectives of this training were to introduce Disaster management procedures,
  mechanisms and structures that has been established in Sri Lanka.
• Introduce the existing opportunities for civil society actors to engage in disaster
  management, disaster risk reduction with a special attention on ensuring continues
  education in the disaster settings.
• and finally, to link the CED representatives with the National and Provincial authorities of
  the Disaster Management Centre in order to optimize the process of Disaster
  Management and Disaster risk reduction

Coalition for Educational Development organized a capacity building programme on Universal Design for
Learning for its member organizations. The UDL guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can
be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in
meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

This capacity building workshop held at SAPSRI training hall in Colombo on 08 April 2024. Dr. TDTL
Dhanapala facilitated this workshop and a total number of 42 representatives from CED member
organizations participated for this workshop.

Coalition for Education Development conduct a dialogue with a group of journalists on the National
Education Policy framework 2023. This event was held on 27 March at hotel Janaki in Thimbirigasyaya
Colombo 05. A total number of 18 journalists representing the leading print media in Sri Lanka
participated to this meeting.
CED made a presentation on the existing policy framework and briefly discussed the main component of
the NEPF 2023. In addition, the observation made by the civil society organization on the current
framework also presented to the participants. This event provided the journalists to review the
framework and identify the positive and negative impact on the education field in Sri Lanka.
CED expect that these journalists will further study the framework and highlight the areas that need to
be focus in their articles in order to improve the quality of education in Sri Lanka

In 2023 April the president appointed a cabinet subcommittee to prepare a National Education
Policy frame work for Sri Lanka. An expert committee appointed by the cabinet subcommittee
has developed the new policy framework in September 2023 and this was approved by the
cabinet in September 2023. The government also announced that this will be presented to the
parliament and it will the basis for any policy reforms in the future.
As similar to the preceding reforms, this policy framework was formulated without sufficient
engagement in consultation procedures with pertinent stakeholders, notably the civil society
sector. Therefore, CED Sri Lanka organized a consultation meeting with an expert group to
review the NEPF 2023 and find out the gaps, challenges, suggest alternatives and ultimately
assist to develop a more comprehensive policy framework. The team compiled a paper Civil
society Observations on NEPF 2023.

CED Chairman Mr Chandana Bandara presented Civil Society observation to the civil society
activists and Academics at the conference on NEPF 2023 at the University of Peradeniya -Sri
Lanka 24 March 2024