-By LeN South Asia Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -18.May.2025, 11.30 PM) If you ever find yourself meandering through Colombo’s suburban sprawl, or navigating the traffic-ridden arteries of Kandy, you’ll encounter a peculiar species of institution populating the landscape: the International School. With names lifted from leafy London boroughs or posh British boarding academies — “Oxbridge Academy,” “Regent British International,” “Camford Royal College” — these establishments promise Shakespeare and science, Oxonian excellence and Edexcel integrity. What you often get instead, however, is something between a tuition centre in disguise and a rather overpriced babysitting service with a Union Jack painted out front.
Behind the polished glass doors and faux-British facades, a quiet scandal brews. One that combines educational negligence, commercial exploitation, and regulatory apathy — and perhaps more alarmingly, the fingerprints of political entrepreneurs using the classroom as a cash cow.
Sri Lanka’s international school boom began in earnest in the late 1990s, as middle-class parents, tired of underfunded government schools, sought “English-medium” sanctuaries for their offspring. What emerged, however, was not a regulated system of Cambridge-style institutions, but a commercial free-for-all — a kind of educational Wild West where anyone with a spare building, a British flag, and a printer could open a school.
And many did.
Today, over 350 so-called international schools operate across the country, offering “British” or “International” syllabi — Edexcel, Cambridge, or a DIY hybrid — without any meaningful government oversight. A shocking number of these schools operate outside the legal definition of a school altogether. They are registered not under the Ministry of Education, but under the Companies Act, as private businesses — which, one could argue, is precisely what they are.
In the absence of a regulatory framework, Sri Lanka’s international school sector has become a parallel economy — one where standards are as negotiable as school fees, and where pedagogy is less important than profit.
While the signage outside boasts “British Qualified Staff,” the reality inside tells a different story. Many of these schools employ unqualified, underpaid, and often untrained “teachers” — typically recent school leavers, university students, or anyone with a half-decent accent. Teaching becomes a gig job, and the classroom a conveyor belt.
There is no requirement for teacher certification. No inspections. No safeguarding training. No vetting or background checks. In fact, one school in Dehiwala was recently found to have employed a former remand prisoner — turned motivational speaker — as its “Head of Character Development.”
One former “English Literature teacher,” who had never read Macbeth but was given a full IGCSE class load after a 20-minute Zoom interview, told us: “They told me as long as I could handle the kids and sound British, it’s fine. They gave me a textbook and said don’t worry about the rest.”
The supposed legitimacy of these schools comes, in part, from their link to international examinations — namely Edexcel (Pearson UK), and Cambridge International. Students sit IGCSE and A-Level exams, ostensibly on par with their counterparts in London or Lagos.
But this system is not immune to scandal.
Multiple school heads and tuition centre operators — who asked to remain anonymous — alleged that exam leakages are an open secret. “Some schools mysteriously get the question papers a day or two early,” said one A-Level Maths teacher in Colombo. “We get calls from students who say their friends at another school already ‘practised’ the same paper.”
Whether these are cases of leaked material, advance copies from British Council courier mishandling, or something more nefarious — no one knows. And that, in itself, is the problem. There is no Sri Lankan examination authority that monitors how these schools access or distribute international exam content. Oversight is outsourced — and trust is assumed.
And the assumption may be dangerous.
If one were to ask who benefits from this sprawling, unregulated education economy, the answer is simple: businessmen, former politicians, and in some cases, the same people who once claimed to protect the nation’s security.
Enter Tiran Alles, the former Minister of Public Security, a man whose resumé includes telecom ventures, political brokering, and a cameo in the Panama Papers. Today, he wears another hat: educationist.
His schools — slick, heavily branded, and conspicuously absent from the Ministry of Education’s approved list — operate across Colombo with the kind of confidence only afforded to those who know their regulators personally.
“Of course, I care about education,” Alles declared at a recent event. “I am not just a businessman. I believe in shaping the future.”
And yet, shaping the future, it seems, is also quite profitable. His schools charge fees that rival elite UK boarding institutions, but with staff credentials that often don’t extend beyond a Bachelor’s degree from a little-known Sri Lankan campus.
That a former public security minister now runs one of the most lucrative international school chains in the country should raise eyebrows. That he was named in offshore financial documents and still faces no conflict-of-interest inquiry from the education authorities should raise alarms.
The official response to this mushrooming sector has been, in a word, lethargic. The Ministry of Education, when asked to comment on international school regulation, offered this gem of bureaucratic evasion:
“These schools are private institutions and are not under our purview. However, we are exploring a framework for optional registration if they wish to be recognised formally.”
Translation: unless they ask to be regulated, they won’t be.
It is the regulatory equivalent of letting taxi drivers decide if they’d like to be licensed — or if traffic rules should apply to them only on weekdays.
At its worst, the international school sector treats children not as learners, but as clients. Education becomes a commodity, sold with glossy brochures and slick marketing videos. “Our child-centred pedagogy promotes 21st-century skills!” declares one school’s website — though its last Facebook update showed students in rows, memorising the periodic table from a whiteboard last updated in 2015.
Parents, desperate for English-medium alternatives and lacking the tools to verify quality, are often hoodwinked. A school that claims to offer “Cambridge Standards” may be using outdated textbooks, photocopied syllabi, and teaching materials pirated off YouTube.
Worse still, some schools have begun offering “pre-IGCSE” and “pre-A Level” programmes for children as young as eight — a cynical move to extend enrolment years and extract more fees.
There is no reason international schools should be exempt from the scrutiny applied to public institutions. In fact, if anything, they demand stricter regulation — because their clientele are vulnerable, their curriculum imported, and their fees extortionate.
Here’s what a functioning system might include:
1. Mandatory licensing: All international schools must be registered under the Ministry of Education, not just the Companies Act.
2. Teacher certification standards: Teachers must have recognised qualifications, training in safeguarding, and undergo criminal background checks.
3. Transparent fee structures: Caps should be introduced to prevent arbitrary fee hikes and hidden charges.
4. Periodic inspections: Academic audits, classroom observation, and curriculum checks must be mandatory.
5. Due diligence on ownership: Individuals named in financial scandals, politically exposed persons (PEPs), or those with controversial ties should face scrutiny before opening schools.
6. Student grievance redressal mechanisms: Children and parents must have avenues to report abuse, mismanagement, or academic fraud.
It is time Sri Lanka took off the Union Jack-coloured glasses and confronted a hard truth: many of its so-called international schools are education cartels dressed as academies. Their claim to British standards is cosmetic; their accountability, nonexistent.
In an age when education is global, standards must be local — enforceable, monitorable, and non-negotiable. Allowing a sector this crucial to operate in a legal twilight zone is not just bad governance — it is an abdication of moral responsibility.
Parents deserve transparency. Students deserve quality. And the country deserves better than schools run like convenience stores by men whose CVs include telecom fraud, tax evasion, and patriotism-for-profit.
Let the government act — before the next generation pays the price.
-By LeN South Asia Correspondent
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by (2025-05-18 19:46:36)
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