The Impact of the Current Economic Crisis on the Quality of Secondary Education in Sri Lanka with Special Reference to Monaragala District

In terms of education quality, school education plays a significant role, and under this, the senior secondary student category is a unique turning point that creates skilled human resources for the near future. Both internal and external economic shocks directly disrupt the smooth functioning of quality education in any economy; in line with this, the negative impact of the economic crisis creates a tragedy in the quality of education. This study's objective is to determine the effect of the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka on the quality of senior secondary education during the worst economic crisis in the economic history of independent Sri Lanka. For this study, 396 senior secondary students and 792 of their parents were randomly selected from 21 government schools under three school types in the Monaragala district, and data were collected through structured questionnaires via telephonic interviews. Factor analysis was employed to construct the dependent variable-education quality-while ordinary least squares linear multiple regression analysis was utilised to assess the impact of economic crisis on education quality. Factor analysis revealed that both reliability, consistency and validity are statistically significant with higher responsiveness, and there is a significant influence on the education quality of the model. In the regression analysis, the three proxies indicating the economic crises of the country are increasing household income generation time of parents, students attending household income generation, and students' annual private education cost. In alignment with this, key analysis revealed that increasing the household income generation time of parents and students attending household income generation has created a considerable negative impact on education quality. But during the economic crisis, students' annual private education costs have created very minimal positive effects on education quality. Aside from that, during the economic crisis, parents with a poor monthly income have been actively involved in secondary jobs. Moreover, during the crisis period, 254 Ordinary Level students had scored less than 55 in science, mathematics, and English subjects, while 48 Advanced Level students failed at least one subject. Under the policy recommendations, the social safety net should be systematic, ensure the teaching and learning basics, and have continuous research and development processes for school regulation and facilitation in order to ensure consistency in quality education during a crisis.