After decades of violent conflicts in Sri Lanka and an education system that has failed to build a sense of national identity and social cohesion, a public consensus has emerged that schools should provide opportunities for children and youth to learn to live together peacefully. As part of its socialization function, schools organize the acquisition of civic knowledge and the development of democratic attitudes and social behavior. However, as an outcome of Sri Lankas´ colonial past, more than 95 percent of public schools are segregated by ethnicity, language, religion and gender. These schools have fostered strong group-based identities with limited opportunities for interaction and exchange. As a result, stereotypes, resentment and mistrust among different ethno-linguistic groups have been generated, reinforced and perpetuated.

Since 2005, in order to foster social cohesion and reconciliation among the citizens of Sri Lanka, the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) supports the Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka in the development and implementation of the national policy on education for social cohesion and peace. In this context, the Education for Social Cohesion Programme (ESC) was implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

In 2017, the ESC programme, in cooperation with the German Sport University Cologne, developed a concept on “Sport for Social Cohesion and Reconciliation”. This concept outlines how sport can be used as a tool to promote social cohesion and how activities can be designed inclusively for people from various social and cultural backgrounds. Measures taken within this approach included the development of a professional development programme for PE lecturers and an inter-college programme between the five National Colleges of Education (NCoE) that are specialized in Physical Education (PE).

The inter-college programme aimed at the promotion of FairPlay games and non-competitive physical activities to raise awareness of mutual respect, trust, tolerance, cooperation and responsibility as attributes of social cohesion and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. Besides the FairPlay games, the inter-college exchange also included a buddy programme that brought students from various ethnic and religious backgrounds together.

We invite you to have a look at the following teaching and learning materials, which were created by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and our partner organizations in Sri Lanka. You will find a more detailed description about the materials in our collection S4D Tools for your Practice/Teaching and Learning Materials. 

If you want to have more detailed and/or further information about S4D in the country, please have a look at the following publications.