Children in Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s achievements and challenges

By Dr. Amara Satharasinghe

Sri Lanka has made major advances in ensuring the welfare of children in many fields, especially in health and education. Many challenges remain. Some of these challenges are long standing. Others have emerged recently. This article highlights some achievements that Sri Lanka has made for her children and draws attention to some challenges primarily based on recent national statistics.

The children of today are the future of mankind. This powerful statement assumes special significance in our context as children comprise one fifth of the total population in the country. Generally children are defined as people aged under 18 years. They include infants, adolescents and young people approaching adulthood. While it is difficult to define when childhood ends and adulthood begins, adulthood implies the adoption of various rights and responsibilities, some of which are legally defined in terms of age. Examples include the right to marry without consent, the right to vote, and to purchase alcoholic drinks in shops and bars. A person’s 18th birthday, at which many of these rights are conferred, has been selected to define the end of childhood. 

As at 2012 the population of Sri Lanka stands at 20.5 million. Population growth rates show very clear decline since 1953 and remains at average annual growth rate of 1.1% during 1981-2012. The total child population in Sri Lanka in 2012/2013 was 4,451,229 of which 50.7% are males. At 2012, an estimated 4.3 million children aged 0-17 lived in Sri Lanka. Boys made up a slightly higher proportion of the child population than girls (51% compared with 49%).

Over the last decades, Sri Lanka has made impressive strides to provide most of its children with access to health, nutrition, education and social welfare. A brief assessment of current status of children is presented here. 

Changing age and sex structure

During the past decades the total size, age and sex structure of Sri Lanka’s population have changed significantly. For the purpose of demographic analysis, age structure can be divided into three broad groups: children (<15 years), working age (15-59 years) and elderly (60 years and above). Such an age structure has major implications on socio-economic conditions of the country. Percentage of child population in 2012 was 25.2 and has been declining from a level of 35.2% in 1981, while the percentage of elderly population has doubled to 12.4% in the same period. 

On the other hand, working age population is 62.4% in 2012 and shows an increase from 58.2% in 1981. Growth of working age population is conducive to economic development, provided it is made use of for economic productivity. It is a window of opportunity not only for economic growth but also for overall enhancement of people’s wellbeing. 

Child dependency ratio is a ratio of people below working age (under 15) to workforce of a country. It is seen that child dependents have decreased from 61 to 40 during 1981 to 2012 due to decrease in child population. Greater proportions of elderly population are replacing the child population which leads to an increase in the index of aging. This is more prominent after 1980s.

Index of aging is an indicator used to measure structural shift of aged population in relation to child population. It gives the number of aged persons of 60 years and above per 100 children under age 15. In 2015, there are 49 elderly persons per 100 children under age 15. This is more than twofold increase from 19 in 1981. 

One reason for declining child population is the falling fertility rates. Fertility varies with age. It is summarised into a single index in the ‘Total Fertility Rate’ (TFR). The total fertility rate is the number of children that would be born per woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years and bear children at each age in accordance with prevailing age-specific fertility rates. Fertility began declining in Sri Lanka during the 1960s. In 1953; TFR was 5.3; by 1971 it was 4.2 and from then began a rapid decline. Between 1995 and 2000 it reached its lowest levels at 1.9 but in 2006-07 it recovered slightly to 2.3 and is estimated to have reached 2.4 in 2011. 

Education

Education in every sense is a fundamental determinant of development. No country can achieve sustainable economic development without substantial investment in human capital. Education enriches people’s understanding of themselves and the world. Sri Lanka takes the pride of place in making significant progress in literacy and education achievement. Over the last 50 years a free education policy and a national commitment to the value and benefit of education has led to some of the highest literacy and enrolment rates. 

The most significant characteristic of education in Sri Lanka is that the achievements were across the social strata, reaching even the most marginalised, thus helping to reduce social inequities. The time is now ripe to extend the achievement to tertiary education and quality of education. Enhancing the relevance of education not only not only for employability but for achieving a sense of wellbeing and fulfillment in life. 

Preschools are important in molding a child. What a child learns and the environment she is exposed to in the first five years have a profound effect in her life, according to psychologists. Over the years, preschool enrollment has increased rapidly in Sri Lanka. The 2011 census data shows that nearly 45% of children aged three years are attending pre-school. Over 85% of children aged four years and 20.5% of five-year-old children attend a pre-school. 

These figures show that all children below the age of schooling are sent to preschools for some time. Thus, it is very important that preschools prepare a child for the world of learning and living in the best possible manner. The preschools can play a critical role in shaping a child’s attitudes, values, norms, and developing the age appropriate skills. What matters is not how much education material the child learns, but how well her psychosocial, cognitive and other functions are supported as a unique person. 

Preschools need to provide care that is reliable, dependable and trust worthy that is of great importance in a child’s development. It is important that the standards and norms of preschools are continually improved to reach the highest possible levels. 

Regular attendance and participation in schooling is an important factor in educational and life success. Children’s attendance in schools is at very high level. Majority of children in age groups 6-10 years and 11-14 years are attending a school. Age group 5-14 years is declared as compulsory age for schooling. Percentage attending a school in age group 5 years is 75%. Percentages corresponding to 15-16 years and 11-14 years are 96 and 94% respectively.

According to findings of surveys, in 2012/13, majority of the children (91.0%) of the estimated total number of 4,451,229 children in the age group of 5-17 years are currently attending school. Percentage of those who are not currently attending to any educational activities is as low as 4.5%. This achievement is exemplarity by international standards. 

However, children not enrolled in school may be a small as a percentage, but in numbers it is significant. Education is a right of every child. No child should be left out. Every child that is left out is very likely to be a waster life – unhappy, unskillful, unhealthy, and a burden to the child and the society. Sri Lanka has been faced with this challenge of reaching the unreached. All who have the ability to reach these marginalised children must creatively find strategies to bring them to mainstream education. 

Literacy is the ability to read, view, write, design, speak and listen in a way that allows one to communicate effectively. The power of literacy lies not just in the ability to read and write, but rather in a person’s capacity to apply these skills to effectively connect, interpret and discern the intricacies of the world in which he or she lives. Computer literacy and language literacy of children are considerably very high. One third of children in the age group of 5-17 in Sri Lanka are computer literate. Language literacy rate of children in 10-17 years is almost 100%. Again the challenge that we must meet is provide access to all children. 

Sri Lanka has won the battle of providing almost universal access to education for her children. The country needs to take up the challenge of making the quality of that education meet the highest possible standards. Education must be relevant so that it makes children equipped to take up the economic and social needs of the country. Above all, the children as they enter the world of adults should be able to live a life that is morally responsible. 

Working children

Child labourers suffer multiple deprivations; they are overworked, have little leisure, are denied education, suffer bad working conditions, cruel treatment by employers, sexual harassment and are paid low wages. Child labour tends to reinforce intergenerational cycle of poverty. It impedes the development of children and adolescents because it deprives them of their education and increases their vulnerability to exploitation. In 2015, 6.7% of the estimated total child population of 947,210 in the age group of 15 to 17 was reported to be in the labour force. Out of those in the labour force, 72.1% are employed.

The Government’s efforts to make Sri Lanka a child labour free country is likely to be achieved before long. According to the Child Activity survey conducted in 2008, out of the 4,338,700 children in the country, the estimated total children in child labour and hazardous child labour are 107,000 and 64,000 respectively. Accordingly, estimated child labour and hazardous child labour are as low as 2.5% and 1.5% respectively. 

Yet, we must strive to see that no child needs to destroy his potential by being forced into untimely and hazardous labour. It is not only the child who loses his precious life potential and gets degraded into a miserable life; it is also the society that will pay in huge social and economic costs when such children end up as adults with psychopathologies and antisocial personalities. 

Healthcare 

It is well known that, Sri Lanka has made remarkable achievements in improving maternal and child health since independence. Good health is an important element in a child’s quality of life as it can influence participation in many aspects of life, including schooling and recreation. Access to health services in Sri Lanka is universal. Availability of health services for Sri Lanka children has improved through the years. In 2014, there were 190 paediatricians and 12 paediatric surgeons. Number of paediatric beds available was 11,693. 

Additionally, the country has a wide network of primary healthcare institutions and services.

Sri Lanka has shown significant progress in reducing infant and child deaths, particularly through the work of neonatal intensive care units, increased community awareness of the risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and reductions in vaccine-preventable diseases through national childhood immunisation programs. Improvements in both access to quality antenatal health care and maternal health through improved nutrition and reduction in risk behaviors during pregnancy, have served to reduce the infant mortality. 

Mortality rates among infants and children indicate ability of families and the Government to provide for their basic health and nutrition needs. The country has shown considerable progress in this aspect since 1990. In particular, under-five mortality went down from 22.5 in 1992 to 10.0 per 1,000 live births in 2013. Infant mortality decreased from 17.9 to 8.2 per 1000 live births. Neonatal mortality rate too went down from 13 in 1993 to 5.8 in 2013. 

The decline in mortality rate through the years has been parallel to the increasing access to skilled care. Attendance by a trained healthcare professional at birth is a factor that is largely responsible for preventing maternal deaths. The proportion of birth attended by a health professional has continued to improve and stands at 99.9%. 

Apart from access to professional birth attendants and overall medical services, vaccination is a very essential element of improving children’s health. Vaccination is conducted to reduce children’s exposure to life-threatening diseases such as polio, measles, DPT and tuberculosis. Children are given the basic vaccines for these diseases during their first year of life. These are BCG, measles, DPT, and polio vaccine. Reported coverage for BCG is 91% and it is for other exceeds 95% in 2014. Commendably Sri Lanka was one of the early countries to be declared polio free internationally. 

Chronic conditions can affect normal growth and physical, social and emotional development processes, and account for a large proportion of the burden of disease among children. Prevalence of chronic illnesses among Sri Lanka children is very low. The reported percentage of children in the age group of 5-17 having a chronic illness is as low as 3.3%.

Teenage pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, poses several risks for mothers and their babies. Teenage motherhood poses significant long-term risks for both mother and child, including poorer health, educational and economic outcomes. For many teenagers, pregnancy is an unplanned and challenging life event and one that can reroute their entire life course. In addition to the implications on education and financial stability, becoming pregnant as a teenager is associated with an increased risk for some potentially serious health problems for both the mother and the baby. According to family health Bureau, in 2014, out of all registered pregnancies, about 5% have been teenage pregnancies.

Functional difficulties

The term ‘functional difficulty’ is used here as it denotes a state of difficulty which not only refers to an impairment in the permanent sense but yet a physical or mental difficulty that is encountered in day to day functions. Percentage of population with functional difficulties increases with the advancement in age.

Children with functional difficulties can have diverse physical, sensory, intellectual and psychiatric impairments that restrict their full involvement in society. In the 2012 Census of Population, a total of 1,442,586 were reported to have disability, around 1.6% of the total population. Of this estimate, roughly 333,269 (or 23% of the total) were children aged below 18. Around one percent of all children in the country have at least one type of disability. Slightly larger proportion (55%) of these children was boys. 

Poverty

Understanding child poverty to the possible extent is vital. While an adult may fall into poverty temporarily, falling into poverty in childhood can last a lifetime – rarely does a child get a second chance at an education or a healthy start in life. As such, child poverty threatens not only the individual child, but is likely to be passed on to future generations, entrenching and even exacerbating inequality in society.

The percentage of the national population that lives in poverty has declined by about 20 percentage points between 1990/91 (26.1%) and 2012/13 (6.7%). Parallel to the same trend poor children’s percentage too has declined dramatically from 19.7% in 2006/2007 to 8.6% in 2012/2013. Children in the household in poverty may be relatively small as a percentage but they are sizable numbers. Efforts need to continue in strategic and creative ways to identify and deploy resources to reduce the impact of poverty on these children. 

Shelter and utilities

Shelter is a basic human need. Similar to the national level trend, the quality of housing units with children in the age group of 5 to 17 years has improved to a larger extent. For example, the percentage of permanent type housing units has increased from 71.7% in 2006/2007 to 82.4% in 2012/2013. Little over 80% of them live in single floor single houses while another 7.3% double floor single houses. Little over 90% of them have access to sanitary facilities connected with water seal pit/tank. 

Severe deprivation to safe water refers to that when one obtains water from unsafe sources such as springs, rivers, streams, rain, and peddlers. In 2012/13, it was reported that around 80% of the children in the age group of 5 to 17 years have access to safe drinking water. Principal source of lighting for about 90% of the children in the above age group is Electricity. While much remains to be done, these are commendable achievements. 

Access to information

An important dimension of poverty is deprivation in information. A severe type of information deprivation refers to the absence of radio, phone, television and computer. These pieces of technology can be sources of information for the population. Due to the technological advancement and phenomenal rise of computer and Smart phones, there are only a little left behind. In 2012/13, 432,770 children in the age group of 5 to 17 years, or 84.6% of the total have a mobile phone; 19% have a computer; 70% have a radio; 83% have a TV. 

Availability of high level of access to these items may have contributed to better quality of life for children. An important challenge is to establish ways to reduce the misuse of these facilities.  The well being of children is always one of nation’s most important concerns. We cherish our children for they are the present and the future of society. Children who do not reach their full potential, and who do not take their place as productive adults established in ethical behavior diminish the power of the society’s future.

(The writer is Director General, Department of Census and Statistics).