Sri Lanka has a significant progress record on achieving access and participation in primary and secondary education over the last decades. Yet, thousands of students leave the education system either at or before GCE O/L without obtaining proper knowledge, skills necessary for further education, their lives and world of work. Some of the reasons for dropping out and low performance of mandatory schooling are related to curriculum, teacher, system-based issues etc. Also, assessments policy and methods do not reflect the needs of the students, world of work, and society at large.

The 13 years of mandatory education policy has been developed as an immediate solution for the above issues. This program will support to develop technical, vocational and social skills of all children’s skills which need to contribute to the effective economic development of the country. Therefore, new vocational stream for GCE A/L will introduced to develop the skills and protect the right to education of all children.

The project was aimed to conduct a study to appraise and evaluate the impact of the policy ‘Thirteen Years of Education to Provide Education for All’ on the current vocational training system, focusing on public agencies (VTA, NAITA, DTET, CGTTI etc.) and private training centres, NVQ standards, and most importantly, the recruitment of trainees to VTCs. The aim to the study is to provide recommendations to all relevant stakeholders to improve coordination and implementation of current separate endeavours.