A recent presidential commission on youth unrest identified economic and educational disparity as foremost among young people's grievances. Some of these problems may be solved by new multi-grade classes and remedial teaching. But the country's ongoing ethnic conflict continues to disrupt education. About 250,000 schoolaged children are displaced, half of them living in relief centres or with relatives. An unknown number live in areas affected by conflict.
Violent protest is a continuing problem among university students.
Many qualified students cannot attend university because of inadequate space. Although the schools have managed to remain in session during the worst of the conflict, and the warring parties at one point halted hostilities while students took their A-level exams, the full extent of harm to education in Sri Lanka will not be known for years. 00135.SRI, January 1995.