Reframing inclusive education through learning facilities : a review of Sri Lankan education policy and practice

Abstract

Inclusive education has become a central priority within international development discourse and national education reform agendas in Sri Lanka. While policy frameworks consistently emphasise access, equity, and participation, the classroom environment is often treated as an assumed pedagogical backdrop rather than a critical condition for inclusive practice. This paper critically examines Sri Lankan inclusive education policy to reveal a conceptual gap in how learning facilities are articulated, arguing that inclusive classrooms must be explicitly framed as physical and material learning environments rather than implicitly assumed pedagogical spaces. The study adopts a literature-based comparative review of two key policy documents shaping inclusive education in Sri Lanka: the UNICEF Disability Inclusive Education Practices in Sri Lanka report (2021) and the National Education Policy Framework NEPF 2023 to 2033. These documents represent the country’s principal diagnostic assessment of inclusive education practices and its most recent national policy framework, enabling a comparison between evidentiary analysis and policy intent. By reframing learning facilities as inclusive class-room environments understood as the physical, spatial, infrastructural, and material conditions that enable or constrain educational participation, the review demonstrates that although both documents acknowledge the importance of learning environments, neither explicitly frames or operationalises learning facilities as inclusive classroom environments. The paper identifies a disjunction between diagnostic evidence and policy ambition and positions this reframing as a foundation for future field-based research on inclusive classroom environments in Sri Lanka.