{"id":151016,"date":"2025-07-27T17:16:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T00:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=151016"},"modified":"2025-07-27T17:16:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T00:16:22","slug":"20755-school-dropouts-vs-151700-qualified-students-denied-university-admission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/07\/27\/20755-school-dropouts-vs-151700-qualified-students-denied-university-admission\/","title":{"rendered":"20,755 School Dropouts vs. 151,700 Qualified Students Denied University Admission"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By Jayantha Herath<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p><em>Visuals created with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Thursday, Parliament disclosed that&nbsp;<strong>20,755 students dropped out of school in 2024<\/strong>, citing the need to close certain schools. However, it overlooked a more critical issue: the&nbsp;<strong>denial of university admission to 151,700 qualified students<\/strong>. This alarming figure highlights the urgent need to&nbsp;<strong>expand higher education infrastructure<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>increase funding<\/strong>, rather than limiting access. The failure to address this gap risks deepening educational inequality and stalling national progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"847\" height=\"847\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-151017\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-3.jpg 847w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-3-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-3-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-3-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 847px) 100vw, 847px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jayantha Herath Visuals created with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot On Thursday, Parliament disclosed that&nbsp;20,755 students dropped out of school in 2024, citing the need to close certain schools. However, it overlooked a more critical issue: the&nbsp;denial of university admission to 151,700 qualified students. This alarming figure highlights the urgent need to&nbsp;expand higher education [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-186"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}