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Institutions in Sri Lanka offer two main types of teacher training: pre-service and in-service. Pre-service means that teacher training is conducted before someone begins teaching, while in-service training is provided to existing teachers in order to improve or upgrade their skills and knowledge. In Sri Lanka, a professional qualification as teacher is not necessary in order to begin teaching. It is not uncommon for schools have teachers who entered teaching after completing the General Certificate of Education Advanced Levels but no teacher training or higher education.
Teacher training in Sri Lanka is offered via several routes. Primarily, teachers are trained at one of the teacher colleges or National Colleges of Education under the auspices of the Ministry of Education's National Institute of Education (NIE) or at one of the universities offering Bachelor of Education programs. Various teacher training options are based on different entry requirements, lengths of study, and ability to teach at different levels. In addition, a decades-long shortage of teachers in Sri Lanka has seen many untrained teachers working in schools, but only a small percentage of untrained teachers are still teaching.
One teacher training route is to complete a 2-year in-service training course for untrained (uncertified) teachers at a teacher training college. Ideally, students have passed three General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE A Level) exams, but many students enroll after passing only the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE O Level) exams, though some may have studied a smaller number of GCE A Level subjects. Existing teachers could also obtain the Trained Teacher's Certificate (TTC) via 4-year distance education programs organized by the National Institute of Education.
Completion of this program requires passing an external examination and leads to the award of a Trained Teacher's Certificate by the Ministry of Education. This grants access to teach at the primary and secondary levels (grades 1 through grade 11) in Sri Lanka. College level, or pre-university, education (grades 12 and 13) requires more advanced teaching skills. Before the 1990s, the TTC from teacher's colleges were the major education for non-degree trained teachers. As of 2014, holders of the Trained Teacher's Certificate (“trained teachers”) made up nearly half of the professionally qualified teachers in Sri Lanka.
Another teacher training route is to complete a 3-year pre-service course in teacher education at one of the National Colleges of Education (NCoE). Students enrolling in the Colleges of Education must pass 3 subjects on the GCE A Levels as well as 6 subjects on the GCE O Levels. The curriculum consists of two years of coursework plus one year of practice teaching internship but incorporates more modern ideas, facilities, techniques, and activities than the curriculum of the teacher colleges. Completing this program leads to a National Diploma in Teaching (NDT), which allows students to teach at the primary and secondary levels at government schools.
It has long been planned for the NDT program to be extended by one year and be upgraded to a degree program, but that has not yet happened nationally. Graduates of the NDT can pursue further education in a Bachelor of Education programs in Sri Lanka by being exempted from some courses at the Open University or the National Institute of Education, though Sri Lankan universities will typically admit NDT holders to the first year of the Bachelor of Education program. According to the Sri Lanka Qualification Framework (SLQF), the National Diploma in Teaching program offered by the NCoE is equivalent to SLQL 4, which is comparable to a Higher Diploma and represents completion of two years of full-time undergraduate study in Sri Lanka.
Completion of a Bachelor of Education at a Sri Lanka university grants access to teaching at senior secondary government schools (grades 9-11). This method of pursuing teacher training is the least common method because there are few opportunities for degree-level teacher training in Sri Lanka; only a small number of universities offer Bachelor of Education programs, and only a small number of students graduate annually with the Bachelor of Education degree. Even at those institutions offering Bachelor of Education programs, however, few offer programs in mathematics, English, or sciences, meaning that only a limited number of Bachelor of Education degrees are awarded in these fields.
While Bachelor degrees in Sri Lanka are typically 3 years following the 13-year GCE A Levels, Bachelor of Education programs are more likely to require four years of full-time study for those entering without an existing teaching qualification.
Graduates of an NDT may also enroll in a shortened BEd program.
Alternately, students may complete a Bachelor's degree in another area of specialization followed by a 1-year (Postgraduate) Diploma in Education if they want to teach in that subject. Alternately, Bachelor degree holders may complete a 2-year (Postgraduate) Diploma of Education via distance education through the Open University of Sri Lanka. All of these routes leads to teaching at the senior secondary and pre-university levels of education in Sri Lanka. Degree holders are eligible to teach students at the pre-university Advanced level.
Continued teacher training may be undertaken via a Master in Education or a Master of Philosophy in Education. Doctoral studies in Education are limited in Sri Lanka.
In addition, Sri Lanka offers numerous teachers centers that offer upgrading of skills for existing teachers, especially those who do not already have a teaching qualification, as well as Regional English Support Centres to provide in-service continuing teacher education for English teachers.
Resources:
Are There Good Quality Teachers for all Classrooms in Sri Lanka? Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, 2017. https://www.ips.lk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/E-Book_ips.pdf
Education First Sri Lanka. Ministry of Education, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20190712184405/http://www.moe.gov.lk/english/images/publications/Education_First_SL/Education_First_SL.pdf
Empowering Education in Cambodia and Sri Lanka: Quality Improvement in Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century. Springer, 2024. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kdrlj-Perera/publication/379454730_The_Role_of_Teacher_Educators_Form_a_Cross-National_Perspective_A_Four-Country_Case_Study/links/667579ed8408575b837d24bb/The-Role-of-Teacher-Educators-Form-a-Cross-National-Perspective-A-Four-Country-Case-Study.pdf
G.C.E. (A/L) and NVQ Qualifications. University of Vocational Technology. http://univotec.ac.lk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/accepted-qualifications.pdf
Initial and Continuing Education of Teachers: Sri Lanka. UNESCO, 1994. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000099300
Initial Teacher Training: South Asian Approaches. Commonwealth Secretariat, 1999. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED389690.pdf
National Authority on Teacher Education Act, No 32 of 1997. Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, 1997. https://lankalaw.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/3524.pdf
National Education Policy Framework (2020-2030) Extended Summary. National Education Commission, 2022. https://nec.gov.lk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/NATIONAL-EDUCATION-POLICY-FRAMEWORK-2020-2030_Extended-Summary.pdf
National Colleges of Education. National Institute of Education. https://www.nie.lk/ncoe3
National Policy on Technical and Vocational Education. National Education Commission, 2018. https://www.tvec.gov.lk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Policy-Book-English-web.pdf
Sri Lankan Teachers’ Development. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association, 1996. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED405310
Study on the Professional Development of Teachers and Teacher Educators in Sri Lanka. National Education Commission, 2014. https://nec.gov.lk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2-Final-.pdf