Despite being a signatory to the “World Declaration on Education for All” in 1990, Sri Lanka has not achieved universal functional education. The need for functional literacy requires 10-11 years of general education. This means, starting at five years a child should be in school at least till 14 years. However, only 93 per cent of the children in the 5-14 year-old age group were in school by the year 2000 in Sri Lanka. This study examines the reasons for school non-participation, using household, community and school-level information obtained from an island-wide survey. The study finds that poverty, direct and indirect costs of schooling, and cultural factors as well as poor quality of schools keep children away from school. Policies facilitating compulsory education at present give prominence to awareness building, monitoring and improvements in education delivery. The results show that these efforts need to be complemented by other supply side improvements and income transfer measures, especially for the poorest, to achieve universal school attendance.

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