July 17, Colombo: Sri Lanka Minister of Education Bandula Gunawardena has stated to the Sinhala daily Divaina today that the number of schools closed last year is higher than what the latest statistics from the Ministry projects.

The Minister said that some closed schools were also categorized as functioning schools by the Ministry.

Recent media reports said that 61 schools were closed within the last year while the number of students in the schools went up by 4,287 heads.

According to the latest statistics of the Ministry of Education, the number of government schools island wide has declined from 9,662 to 9601. However, the number of students has increased from 3,929,234 in 2008 to 3,933,521 in 2009.