Parents' and Students’ Perceptions of the Education System of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Twenty-first-century skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, are widely accepted as skills in high demand within modern working environments. National school curricula reforms in Sri Lanka attempt to propose pedagogies that disseminate content and design assessments to promote twentyfirst- century skills. However, whether all stakeholders of the national school education agree to include such skills should be investigated before changes to curricula, policies and practices are implemented. The purpose of this study is to survey the perceptions of the main stakeholders of the national education system in Sri Lanka. The perceptions of parents, and students were investigated in this study. Seventeen (17) participants including nine (09) parents; three (03) school students, and five (05) vocational/degree level students) representing different social and educational backgrounds participated in the study. A standardized, semi-structured, open-ended questionnaire was conducted through virtual meeting mode. The 'Naturalized' transcription method was adopted in this study. Open coding of data revealed that more than 80% of the participants exhibited awareness of global 'good' practices and believed in the vital need for a change of policy and/or practice within the existing system. In addition, the participants expressed the need to improve students' emotional and attitudinal aspects within school setups. Interestingly some highlighted the need to consider external and control factors affecting policy/practice changes in education.