evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Ministry of Education–Microsoft AI Curriculum Pilot — Sri Lanka's 20-District Teacher and Classroom Rollout

Sri Lanka · Colombo · See the Sri Lanka profile · See the Colombo profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 81% 33/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Sri Lanka's Ministry of Education signed a March 2024 MoU with Microsoft to pilot AI in the Grade 8+ IT curriculum across 20 schools in 20 districts, training 100 teachers in a train-the-trainer model ahead of a targeted 2025 full rollout.

20 schools
Schools participating in the initial pilot round (2024 pilot round)
20 districts
Districts covered by the pilot round (2024 pilot round)
~100 teachers
Teachers trained under the train-the-trainer model (2024 pilot round)
Ministry of Education–Microsoft AI Curriculum Pilot — Sri Lanka's 20-District Teacher and Classroom Rollout

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Sri Lanka Ministry of Education / Microsoft
Period
March 2024 MoU – targeted full implementation 2025
Keywords
public education, ICT, curriculum development, teacher training

Context

On 19 March 2024, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Education signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft, witnessed by the US Embassy, to pilot artificial-intelligence content within the existing Grade 8-and-above Information Technology curriculum rather than create a new standalone subject.

Objectives

Introduce AI literacy into the school curriculum, with a stated rationale of addressing a shortage of STEM/IT teachers, and build toward full national implementation.

Activities

The pilot round covers 20 selected schools spread across 20 districts, with a Microsoft support team training around 100 teachers under a train-the-trainer model so that trained educators can cascade AI knowledge to colleagues; participating schools are also expected to provide classrooms and technical equipment, with the Ministry targeting full national implementation in 2025.

Conclusions

As of the sources reviewed, the initiative remains at the pilot/rollout stage with no published outcome or evaluation data, and its stated rationale of addressing the STEM/IT teacher shortage is an ambition rather than a demonstrated result.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — MoU signed 19 March 2024; Ministry targeted full national implementation in 2025.
Staffing & skills
Sri Lanka Ministry of Education, Microsoft support team (training delivery), Trained teachers (train-the-trainer cascade)

Conditions for success

  • Train-the-trainer model to cascade AI knowledge from ~100 trained teachers to colleagues
  • Participating schools providing classrooms and technical equipment
  • Integration into the existing Grade 8+ IT curriculum rather than a new standalone subject

Where it fits

Governance type
national ministry with multinational corporate partner
Scale
pilot (20 of many districts), targeting national rollout
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful