Millions of schools in the Western province of Sri Lanka have been forced to postpone exams “indefinitely” as the country faces an acute shortage of paper, owing to the government’s lack of finances to import paper, a government official said on Friday.
Priyantha Srilal Nonis, the Western province’s director of education, said that printers are unable to produce school test papers due to paper shortages and price hikes, causing students in certain classes to miss their final term exams, local newspaper Sinhala News
reported.Officials claimed that such failure could result in over two-thirds of the country’s 4.5 million students missing term assessments, which are vital in evaluating the students’ qualifications to advance to the next grade at the end of the school year.
“There are no textbooks either. The books should’ve been printed before January. They haven’t done their job,” Joseph Stalin, the Ceylon Teachers’ Union general secretary,
told Sinhala News.
Sri Lanka is in the grip of its worst ever economic crisis, with foreign exchange reserves plummeting by 70 percent in the last two years to about $2.31 billion, leaving the country struggling to pay for essential imports such as food and fuel.
The country has piled up $11.8 billion worth of debt through sovereign bonds, which makes up the largest part, or 36.4 percent, of its external debt.
China accounts for 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt, having loaned or invested more than $8 billion to the country over the past few years. Sri Lanka had
requested China to help restructure its debt obligations, but it remains unclear whether Beijing will grant the request.
On March 16, Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that his government was in discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions on deferring loan repayments.
“Through those discussions, we hope to find a way to pay off our annual loan installments, sovereign bonds, and so on,” Rajapaksa said in a
televised address. “Subsequent to my discussions with the International Monetary Fund, I have decided to work with them after examining the advantages and disadvantages.”
Following the discussion, IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice told reporters Friday that the financial institution “stands ready to discuss all options for Sri Lanka.”
The government also secured a
$1 billion credit line from India last week, which will help Sri Lanka to procure food, medicines, and other essential items. The loan is on top of the $500 million credit line offered by India to assist Sri Lanka in purchasing fuel last month.
“Neighborhood first. India stands with Sri Lanka,” India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a
tweet. “US$1 billion credit line signed for the supply of essential commodities. Key element of the package of support extended by India.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
