Structure of School Biology Education in Sri Lanka

C. M. R. Anthony
Director, National Institue of Education, Maharagama
President, Institute of Biology, 2004-2005

In many countries including Sri Lanka, there is usually a single centralized curriculum designed for children alike with a view to avoid discrimination and provide equality of opportunity. Within this curriculum, biology is rarely taught as a distinct subject at the primary (grades 1-5) and lower secondary (grades 6-9) levels. Instead, it is usually offered as a part of environmental or nature study at the former (environment related activities in Sri Lanka), and as integrated science at the latter stage. It is only at the higher secondary (grades10-13) stage that we find biology as a well-established school curricular discipline in most educational systems with public and institutional support. Science as part of general education has always been viewed as a subject of life-long utility in school curricula. Recently, the trend in many countries has been to switch to environmental studies with curricular content based mainly on three clusters: living things, matter and energy, and earth and universe.

Proposed curriculum reforms to be implemented in 2007 provide opportunity for the children reaching grade 10 to take Biology as a subject. Biology, by virtue of its usefulness in everyday life and in socio-cultural change, forms an integral component of almost all school science courses.