By Vox Civis

This critical analysis by Vox Civis examines the recurring pattern of administrative failures and the lack of political accountability within the current Sri Lankan government. Focusing on the recent Grade 6 textbook controversy, the author argues that the state's tendency to blame officials while shielding political leaders undermines public trust and jeopardizes the future of national education.

Even as another year dawns and families across Sri Lanka ready their children for a new school term complete with its rituals of new uniforms, sharpened pencils and anxious hope, an old and unsettling pattern has once again asserted itself. What should have been a quiet moment of renewal has instead been hijacked by controversy, conusion and the unmistakable sense that the state has once more lost its moral and administrative compass – now a regular occurrence. 

The uproar over the Grade 6 curriculum is not merely about a disputed web link or an allegedly inappropriate lesson, but more about power exercised without accountability, reform pursued without consent, and a governing culture that reflexively denies responsibility while pushing expendable officials under the bus to shield political authority.

With a growing list of issues that pop up with notable regularity, the government’s instinctive response in each instance has thus far been depressingly familiar. Caught off guard, it rushes to plead innocence, distance itself from the offending material and promise – yet again – an investigation. The language is rote, the choreography well-rehearsed and the ultimate outcome almost always, the same – nothing.

The National People’s Power (NPP) regime’s ‘incident cycle’ is now familiar with the public: An inquiry is announced, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is summoned, a senior official is nudged toward resignation, and the political leadership retreats behind a wall of procedural noise until public anger subsides and attention drifts elsewhere. The controversy is then quietly buried, unanswered questions left to fossilize in the national memory, alongside countless others. This has now become standard operating procedure for a regime bungling its way through from one crisis to another – some of it nature and circumstances induced, others self-induced.

Insult to public intelligence

Yet to pretend that the Grade 6 textbook incident is an isolated mishap is to insult the intelligence of the public. As described above, there is, by now, a discernible and troubling pattern. Only months ago, Sri Lanka Tourism found itself at the center of a similar storm after issuing an official letter endorsing an LGBTQ gathering. When public disapproval erupted, the institution promptly disowned the letter, claimed ignorance and announced an investigation. That inquiry, like so many before it, vanished without trace. No one was held responsible. No explanation was offered. The status quo prevailed. Now, in the education sector, a far more sensitive and consequential arena, the same script is being replayed with unnerving precision.

At the center of the current scandal lies a Grade 6 English learning module that allegedly directed students to an external website containing material parents and educators consider wholly inappropriate for children of that age. The Ministry of Education has rushed to deny intent, hinting darkly at conspiracies designed to discredit its reform agenda. As usual, the CID led by its own faithful party loyalist, has been tasked with uncovering the truth. 

Meanwhile, Professor Manjula Vithanapathirana, Director General of the National Institute of Education, appears to have been nudged to resign, reportedly on the instructions of the Prime Minister, who also holds the education portfolio, until investigations are concluded. In the blunt vernacular of Sri Lankan politics, what this means is, until the heat dies down.

Her resignation fits seamlessly into the well-established pattern where, when the National People’s Power government finds itself in trouble – and the occasions are accumulating with alarming frequency – it is a state official who is made to absorb the blow. Political accountability, promised so fervently during the campaign trail, dissolves the moment it is tested in office. Ministers remain untouched, party loyalists are fiercely protected, and the machinery of power closes ranks. The Party’s formidable social media apparatus is then unleashed to muddy the waters, redirect blame, and vilify critics.

Bordering on the absurd

The list of recent precedents is long enough to border on the absurd. When a former Speaker was involved in a serious motor accident that left a young mother and her infant badly injured, responsibility somehow landed on the mechanic who had repaired the vehicle. When a local government representative affiliated with the ruling party was caught running an illegal cannabis plantation, it was the police officer who conducted the raid who found himself in trouble. When journalists exposed the importation of allegedly substandard medicine, the fault lay not with the Health Minister or the Ministry, but with the media itself. Each episode followed the same logic: NPP and its loyalists are innocent by definition; accountability is for others.

This selective application of responsibility stands in stark contrast to the moral absolutism the NPP championed while in the opposition benches. Then, any scandal – no matter how minor or insignificant – was met with thunderous demands for the immediate resignation of the relevant minister. Today, the same party governs by a different rulebook altogether. The gap between promise and practice has become a chasm, eroding public trust with every new controversy papered over rather than confronted.

The case of the disgraced former Speaker is emblematic. Forced to resign after failing to prove his academic qualifications, he assured the public that original certificates validating his doctorate would be produced within weeks. Now, more than a year has passed and the certificates have not materialised. No legal action has been taken. The individual continues to enjoy state privileges at public expense. 

Elsewhere, three prominent ministers were once reported to be due in court over an alleged property fraud. The matter has since evaporated into silence. In the meantime, scarcely a week passes without some ruling party cadre being implicated in a fracas, only for the incident to be swiftly hushed up or if that turns out to be too difficult, for someone else to be implicated as the culprit while the social media troll farms whitewash the actual culprit.

Questions over legality

Against this backdrop, the Grade 6 curriculum debacle takes on a significance far greater than its immediate details. According to the Ministry Secretary, Rs. 60 million has been spent printing 350,000 copies of the English modules. These are now languishing in storage in Colombo while officials scramble to remove the ‘offending’ pages before distribution. That methodology of removing pages is also shrouded in controversy as it can potentially be argued that it amounts to the willful destruction of state property – a non bailable criminal offense. Therefore, the officials who issue such orders and those carrying out the orders will both likely be exposing themselves to possible litigation under a future regime.

The questions practically ask themselves. Who will bear responsibility for this colossal waste of public funds? What happens to the material on the torn-out pages? Were those pages unnecessary all along, and if so, why were they included? In a country struggling under IMF austerity and pleading poverty at every turn, such cavalier treatment of public money is nothing short of scandalous. To make matters worse, there are officials and former ministers currently serving jail time for wastage of public money amounting to far lesser in value.

The deeper issue, however, is not merely fiscal mismanagement but the manner in which sweeping educational reforms are being conceived and imposed. Critics, including the Convener of the Association of Educational Professionals, Ven. Ulapane Sumangala Thera, have alleged that the content in question promotes homosexual activity and that students were explicitly directed to online material detailing same-sex relationships. The Ministry has responded not with transparency but with suspicion, framing the controversy as a possible conspiracy to undermine its reform programme.

Yet it is precisely the secrecy surrounding these reforms that has fuelled public scepticism. There have been no meaningful consultations with teachers’ unions, parents, university faculties of education, or any other key stakeholders. Advisory panels are alleged to have excluded qualified academics in favour of a small, ideologically aligned circle.

Questions over rushed roll-out

Critics argue that much of the reform package appears recycled from previous administrations, repackaged and rushed through without rigorous scrutiny. The haste with which the so-called reforms are being rushed through has raised uncomfortable questions about whether the driving force behind the January 2026 rollout was educational readiness or the need to satisfy donor timelines linked to a reported $200 million World Bank allocation.

If the government expects public trust, it must answer some very basic questions: What research underpinned these reforms? Who conducted it? Who authored the policy documents? Which foreign stakeholders were involved, and in what capacity? How exactly has the World Bank funding been utilised? These are not unreasonable demands. They are the minimum requirements of democratic accountability, particularly when these reforms will affect millions of children and shape the moral and intellectual fabric of the next generation.

Instead, the government has chosen to retreat behind the CID, outsourcing political responsibility to law enforcement. This tactic has become so habitual that it now borders on parody. Investigations are announced with great fanfare, only to disappear without resolution when they threaten to implicate those in power. The same CID, led by an officer widely perceived as politically favoured, has shown remarkable enthusiasm in pursuing opposition figures while displaying a curious lethargy when ruling party interests are at stake. 

Such one-sided policing has not gone unnoticed by the public, nor by potential foreign investors who must surely be watching these developments with growing unease. Ironically, the very behaviour the government defends as necessary for stability is among the strongest deterrents to the investment and assistance it claims to seek.

Against the global trend

There is also a striking global irony at play. At a time when several Western countries, including Australia, are reassessing and tightening guidance around age-appropriate content for children, Sri Lanka appears to be stumbling headlong into controversy by embedding disputed material within its school curriculum itself. 

Religious institutions, notably the Catholic Church, raised early objections to the proposed reforms and the manner in which sex education was to be introduced. Their concerns were dismissed, and warnings ignored. The result is the present debacle, complete with emergency interventions such as instructing the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission to block the offending website nationwide – unprecedented by any yardstick.

Politically, the fallout has been severe. Opposition figures have called for the resignation of the Prime Minister in her capacity as Education Minister, citing a catastrophic failure of oversight. Trade unions have threatened legal action against senior officials under the Penal Code. The carefully choreographed launch of the so-called “Transformational Education” project has been thrown into disarray, its credibility badly damaged before it has even begun. More importantly, public confidence – already fragile with a long list of broken promises – has taken another blow.

What this episode ultimately reveals is not a simple policy error but a deeper crisis of governance. A government that came to power on the promise of clean, transparent administration has begun to resemble the very regimes it routinely condemned. Accountability is selectively applied, transparency invoked only as rhetoric, and reform pursued as an exercise in power rather than a process of collective deliberation. Mistakes or incompetence are framed as conspiracies, critics dismissed as enemies, and institutions instrumentalised to protect political authority rather than serve the public interest.

Not the place for experiments

Education, of all sectors, demands humility, patience, and openness. It shapes citizens long before they can vote, protest, or organise. To treat it as a playground for ideological experiments or donor-driven deadlines is to gamble recklessly with the nation’s future. The Grade 6 curriculum controversy is a warning; a flare fired into the night sky, signalling that something has gone profoundly wrong in the way this government governs.

The question now is whether those in power will heed that warning or once again wait for it to fade. If the past is any guide, the temptation will be to sacrifice another official, announce another investigation, and move on. But the cost of that cynicism is rising. Each evasion corrodes trust; each unanswered question deepens suspicion, and each attempt to govern without consent brings Sri Lanka closer to a future in which reform is no longer believed, no matter how necessary it may be.

In the end, the controversy is not about a link in a textbook. It is about whether this country can still demand honesty from those who rule it – and whether those rulers are willing to offer it without being forced.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

Quote – by Pulseline.