Sri Lanka: Education Ministry Declares Week-Long Holiday Amid Fuel Crisis

Meanwhile, public sector employees have been asked to work from home for two weeks due to shortages of fuel.

Sri Lankans wait in a queue to buy kerosene oil in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Image used for representation only.

(Photo: AP/PTI)

Amid the ongoing fuel crisis induced by a crumbling economy, the Sri Lankan Education Ministry has declared a week-long holiday from 4 July for all government and state-approved private schools.

"All government and government-approved private schools in Colombo city limits, as well as schools in other main cities in the other provinces, will be closed during the next week due to prolonged power cuts," the ministry announced, reported by the Daily Mirror, a daily English-language newspaper published in Colombo.

The Sri Lankan Education Minister, Susil Premajayantha, said that schools will cover the syllabus in the next vacation term.

This announcement comes after the Sri Lankan government had announced on 18 June that all schools will be shut for a week.

The economic crisis led the Sri Lankan government to announce last month that public sector employees would work from home for two weeks due to shortages of fuel.

It also announced on 27 June that was suspending the sale of fuel for non-essential services for two weeks till 10 July.

Additionally, Sri Lanka Education Ministry Secretary Nihal Ranasinghe has asked schools to conduct online classes.

Sri Lanka is going through an economic meltdown of a scale unseen since the country's financial crisis of 1948. Prices of essential commodities like rice, milk, and oil have skyrocketed.

The main cause is the shortage of foreign currency, which has led to a huge reduction in imports of essential items like petroleum, food, paper, sugar, lentils, medicines, and transportation equipment.

The roots of the shortage lie in the recent failure of the tourism industry and the failure to procure enough FDI.

(With inputs from ANI and Daily Mirror.)