Sri Lanka has made significant progress in terms of its basic education indicators compared to many other developing countries in the world. Moreover, it is on track to achieve the MDG targets of universal primary education and gender parity in education. This study was carried out as a part of the project on ‘Economic and Political Empowerment of the Poor: Sri Lanka Country Studies’ and was published in a monograph as a part of the publication series originating from the Centre for Policy Dialogue/South Asian Centre for Policy Studies’ project on the Eradication of Poverty in South Asia.