Market Intelligence Brief - Sri Lanka 2019-20

The Sri Lanka aims to be a leading HE hub in South Asia and for education to be one of six major exports. TNE is a big policy focus point, along with improving quality control in the private HE sector, and reforming public education to better meet the needs of the labour market. UK enrolments were just 1,265 in 2018/19, well below the peak of over 7,500 enrolments in 2010/11. The UK’s tightened visa policies have heavily impacted UK recruitment. Despite this, 13 per cent more UK study visas were issued to Sri Lanka-domiciled applicants in 2019 than in 2018.The large and expanding youth population presents major challenges in higher education, as current tertiary education capacity does not meet demand: only 19 per cent of qualifying students secure spots in public universities, which are free of tuition. The extreme lack of supply, coupled with the variable quality of local private institutes, is driving many students to seek international HE alternatives. An open regulatory environment has created one of the fastest-growing transnational education (TNE) markets in the South Asian region and Sri Lanka is now the 5th largest TNE market for the UK.