640 schools in Sri Lanka’s cyclone-hit provinces not to reopen for third term

Over 600 schools in three cyclone-affected provinces of Sri Lanka will not be reopening for the third term, and the students will be promoted without tests, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday. The Ministry of Education directed schools to refrain from conducting term tests for Grades 6 to 10 for the third term of the 2025 academic year, reported Newsfirst Lanka portal.

In Sri Lanka, institutions which are primarily Government-run divide the academic year into three terms, but this is not followed by every institution. “At least 640 schools in the cyclone-affected areas will remain shut. We have instructed the regional educational officers to promote students to the next grade without term tests,” said Nalaka Kaluwewa, Secretary for the education ministry.

Although schools are scheduled to reopen on Tuesday, the final decisions on the reopening of the schools have been delegated to provincial and district authorities, depending on local conditions, said Deputy Minister of Education Madhura Seneviratne. Meanwhile, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, while addressing the National Council for Disaster Management, said on Monday that the government was on the quest to set up a plan to preserve the central hill areas, which were the worst affected by the disaster.

“We have identified 15,000 homes which are vulnerable in the areas. By the end of next year, we will complete 8000 new houses for them,” Dissanayake said and also asked the officials to speed up the process to pay 25,000 Sri Lankan rupees to each house affected by floods. The council of the disaster management centre, which had met for the first time in 7 years, was told by the officials that 2.2 million people were affected by the disaster, with 6164 houses destroyed and 112,110 left partially damaged.