Lead schools system to be introduced and several small schools will be improved under a new plan. The concept of ‘National schools’ is to be scrapped and replaced by a new system to be known as ‘Lead schools’ under new education reforms which will come into effect next year. Under the new plan there will be 1,200 Lead schools which will be a cluster of leading schools, Education Minister Susil Premajayantha said. Several smaller schools will be annexed to the lead schools so students from the smaller schools will be able to gain admission to the bigger schools, after completing their education up to grade five in these small schools.
The number of education zones will also be increased from 100 to 120 and another new system known as Education Boards will be introduced as well. Thereby the competition to get into national schools would be eliminated and instead, a larger number of schools would be developed through the new system Minister Premajayantha said. The facilities in the Lead schools would be expanded so more students could be admitted. The Minister said discussions would be held with Parliamentarians and district committees before the new systems were introduced. He said the new Lead schools system would reduce the demand for National schools and several other schools would be improved too, under this new system. The mapping of schools to decide under which Lead school they belong had already been decided, he added.