Despite long civil war, Lanka is neighbour’s envy in health, education: Report
September 23, 2010 02:16 am
Sri Lanka has the lowest maternal mortality rate (MMR) in South East Asia and its infant mortality rate (MMR) is better than many wealthier countries, the United Nation’s second report on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) progress has said.
“At its current level of 11.3 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, IMR (infant mortality rate) is lower than that achieved by countries considerably wealthier than Sri Lanka,’’ the report, released in Colombo on Tuesday, said.
Besieged by criticism for political developments and not doing enough for the beleagured Tamil community, the report was certainly good news for President Mahinda Rajapaksa currently in New York to attend the UN general assembly.
While Rajapaksa will take some credit for the country’s comparatively excellent performance in health and education sectors, what is exemplary is that the sectors saw improvement even during the decades of intense civil conflict.
The report said poverty had declined from 26.1 per cent in 1990-91 to 15.2 percent in 2006-07 and the country was on course to attain the MDG target of halving poverty (down to 13 percent) at the national level by 2015 Sri Lanka has almost achieved the universal primary education target with net enrollment rate reaching 97.5 percent in 2006/07 for both males and females, the report said.
Unlike India, it has almost reached gender parity in primary education with the ‘ratio of girls to boys in primary education’ reaching 99 percent in 2006/07.
In secondary and tertiary education, the proportion of girls to boys exceeds 100 percent indicating that there are more girls than boys in secondary and tertiary levels of education. This also needs the attention of the authorities, the report said.
The report also said Sri Lanka still remains as one of the few countries in the region with a low level HIV epidemic. High literacy, the relatively high status of women and good access to healthcare services act as a protective barrier against the spread of HIV infection in Sri Lanka, it said. – (The Hindustan Times)
