Abstract:
State schools in Sri Lanka are categorized into four types based on the grades and subjects
offered at the General Certificate of Education – Advanced/Level (G.C.E. A/L). This
categorization appears to be providing equity in educational access as there are fair policies
to enroll students into any type of school. Unfortunately, there are many other hidden
contributing factors which shatter these fair policies concerning equity in school access.
Moreover, various studies have shown that student achievement levels can be easily
determined by the type of school they attend. This study was done using data collected by
the National Education Research and Evaluation Centre (NEREC) in collaboration with
the World Bank and the Ministry of Education (MoE) in Sri Lanka in 2012 on factors
affecting educational achievement of students completing grade 8. For this study, such data
were extracted by creating parameters for social capital, human capital and financial capital.
Each capital was correlated with the marks for science, mathematics and English to
ascertain whether any relationship between capital and achievement exists. It was found
from the study that rather than improving home and school social capital, improving home
and school financial and human capital can heighten academic achievements.
