Early Childhood Development (ECD) is of great importance to Sri Lanka as it has the potential to improve school learning outcomes, which can have long lasting effects on the well-being of the population, Minister of Finance and Media  Mangala Samaraweera said today.

“At the heart of empowerment is education. It is education at all levels that endows people with the necessary skills to actively participate in the economy”, Samaraweera added.

The Minister pointed out that as Sri Lanka positions itself as a highly competitive knowledge-based economy, robust cognitive development from an early stage becomes essential. Furthermore, he said that the government will spend 6% of its GDP for education by 2020.

“In 2014, the previous government spent only 1.46% of its GDP for education. Today, we have increased this percentage to 3.5%. Our aspiration is to allocate 6% of the country's GDP for education by 2025”, Samaraweera said.

Samaraweera made these remarks at the ‘Building Brains, Building Futures, The Sri Lanka Early Childhood Development (ECD) High-Level Meeting’, held today (17).

The Childhood Development (ECD) High‐Level Meeting also presented early childhood-centric budget proposals to Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, for his consideration in the 2019 National Budget.