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A Human Rights Watch report revealed that during the Covid-19 school closures, governments in 49 of the world's most populous countries violated children's rights by approving and enabling the widespread adoption of EdTech products. Children have been forced to pay for their learning at the cost of their rights to privacy and access to information. Of the 164 EdTech products examined, 146 (89%) monitored children's personal data secretly and without the consent of children or their parents, both inside and outside their virtual classrooms and on the internet.

Only a select number of school-level accountability initiatives in low- and middle-income countries have reduced corruption; improved managerial, parental, and teacher effort; and led to more efficient targeting of reforms and resources. These limited successes, too, appear to be context-specific and difficult to replicate. It is not enough to put information in the public domain and hope that it enhances accountability, especially since marginalized parents and communities have the least amount of time, resources, or influence to take up the reins of structural change. Information interventions need to consider carefully the audience, design, and presumed causal pathway to improved service delivery.

Freshmen to universities with financial autonomy have called on the universities to publicise tuition fees so that they and their families can manage the sum actively. A local newspaper on Friday reported that some universities “forget” to publicise tuition fees, which made students and their families confused and worried about transparency at the universities. In the middle of last month, second-year students at the National Economics University were shocked when the university announced a 30 per cent increase in tuition fees in the coming academic year.

Many instances were witnessed across the country, where parents arrived at schools to return free uniform material vouchers which were invalid. There were also instances where parents complained of the insufficient value attached to these vouchers, and where parents were unable to purchase quality material for a specified price. Against this backdrop, several teachers and principals’ associations staged a joint media briefing in Colombo, highlighting the fact that teachers, students and parents, have been inconvenienced by the new voucher system.

Information related to students, teachers and schools will be a click away, from this academic year. The information will soon be available on a website hosted by the National Informatics Centre. The student database will help teachers and parents concentrate on learning levels. The online database will also be used to arrest the drop-out rate among students.

School councils serves as an instrument for Parents' Associations, through their Confederations and Federations, to inform and encourage parents to vote in school council elections and to stand as candidates for school councils.

Nowadays corruption is not only the focus of the print and electronic media. Most parents and teachers would agree that the public education can play a role in correcting this situation. Students must be made aware of the application of the values and rules.