- Home
- Rising Perspectives
- Port City Colombo: Championing Education in Sri Lanka as a Legacy for Its Future
Each year, Sri Lanka produces a generation of highly capable graduates who are recognised for their competitiveness on the global stage. Yet many of these young professionals seek opportunities abroad, reflecting both the strength of their skills and the limited career opportunities in Sri Lanka. By expanding Sri Lanka’s job opportunities, the country can retain this skilled talent, strengthen the local workforce, and drive sustainable economic growth.
Port City Colombo recognises this dynamic as both a challenge and an opportunity. Conceived as Sri Lanka’s first multi-services Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the project is built on the understanding that sustainable growth depends not only on world-class infrastructure, but on the people who drive it. By championing education as one of the primary vehicles of social responsibility, Port City Colombo is creating conditions for talent to thrive locally while remaining globally connected.
For investors, this approach signals more than compliance with corporate responsibility standards. It demonstrates a strategic commitment to long-term value creation—aligning economic ambition with inclusive development, and ensuring that Sri Lanka’s next generation becomes a driver of innovation, growth, and competitiveness.
With Sri Lanka’s literacy rate exceeding 92%, the nation has long regarded education as a national strength. Yet this strength exposes a structural gap. Each year, more than 274,000 students sit the G.C.E. Advanced Level examination, yet only around 23% secure admission to state universities in Sri Lanka. This leaves over 130,000 ambitious young people without formal tertiary pathways—an unmet demand that signals both social urgency and untapped potential.
Migration compounds the challenge. Between 2022 and 2024, over 900,000 citizens left the country—30% skilled professionals—and more than 20,000 students pursued studies overseas in 2024 alone. In the first eight months of 2025, over 200,000 more Sri Lankans have migrated. With more than half of graduates seeking careers abroad, expanding employment opportunities in Sri Lanka is critical to retain talent and enable skilled professionals to thrive locally.
In shaping its growth model, Port City Colombo has placed education at the centre of its social responsibility commitments. The rationale is clear: while modern infrastructure and investment flows can catalyse growth, it is talent that sustains it. By investing in pathways that expand access and opportunity at home, the project is supporting Sri Lanka’s youth employment, aligning national social priorities with long-term investor confidence—transforming Sri Lanka’s youth from an underutilised resource into a competitive advantage.
Port City Colombo’s vision in championing education goes beyond attracting or being home to world-class international institutions. It is focused on building bridges with Sri Lanka’s established academic ecosystem and empowering the next generation of talent. The project has consistently engaged with universities, institutes, and student communities across the country, reinforcing the principle that Port City Colombo belongs to Sri Lanka and its youth.
This mission has become more urgent against the backdrop of record migration, with skilled professionals and students increasingly seeking opportunities overseas. Families are determined to secure global-quality education, but the country needs scalable, world-class options at home.
Port City Colombo’s education ecosystem is designed as a direct response to unmet demand. While firmly rooted in Sri Lanka’s academic landscape, it is shaped with a regional lens. South Asia is home to millions of ambitious learners who traditionally pursue studies in the UK, US, Australia, or Malaysia. By delivering globally benchmarked education within the region—secure, culturally familiar, and cost-effective—it seeks to retain Sri Lanka’s brightest talent while attracting ambitious learners from across South Asia.
This vision is reinforced through active collaboration with state and private universities and institutes, demonstrating that Port City Colombo is both locally anchored and globally relevant.
Every engagement reflects Port City Colombo’s belief that the city’s future must be shaped by those who will inherit it. These collaborations build awareness, skills, and confidence—empowering Sri Lankan students not only to envision opportunities at home but also to view Port City Colombo as a platform with regional reach and global relevance.
As Sri Lanka faces rising demand for quality higher education—both within the country and across the region—Port City Colombo demonstrates how large-scale development can combine economic ambition with long-term social value. By engaging closely with the education sector and advancing inclusive initiatives, the project is building on Sri Lanka’s tradition of educational achievement while creating new opportunities for the future.
Port City Colombo is meeting this demand with a purpose-built Education Cluster inside its US$15 billion Special Economic Zone, where globally recognised institutions are being established and strategic education investment is taking shape.
Together, the school and university will form an integrated hub that serves Sri Lanka’s students while also drawing learners from across South Asia. By positioning Colombo as a regional base for academic excellence, the Education Cluster responds to national priorities:
For Port City Colombo, championing education is about giving young people the chance to take part in building a future they can believe in. Every workshop with students, every joint project with a university, is an education investment—an investment not only in their confidence and skills, but in the human capital that will define Sri Lanka’s future. It is about making sure that knowledge gained in a classroom can be carried into the global stage.
For investors, this represents more than social impact—it is the foundation of resilience. A city shaped by capable, motivated graduates creates the conditions for sustained growth and global partnerships. Supporting education strengthens the social fabric of Sri Lanka while ensuring that Port City Colombo builds a lasting legacy: a development remembered not just for its skyline, but for the generations of talent it nurtures.
Port City Colombo recognises that true progress will not be measured in new buildings or infrastructure alone, but in the people who will shape the country’s future. Its long-term value lies in the knowledge, skills, and confidence of the youth it supports today—an investment in human capital that will endure for generations.
For Sri Lanka, this means opportunities created at home, giving graduates a reason to see their future within the country. For the wider region, it means a new hub of education and exchange, rooted in local strengths yet globally connected. And for investors, it signals a development that delivers sustainable returns while leaving a lasting social and economic legacy.
Port City Colombo is championing education as its most enduring responsibility, ensuring that Sri Lanka’s brightest minds find their greatest opportunities at home.
Visit our Investor Relations page or Contact Us to see how your organisation can help shape Sri Lanka’s education legacy at Port City Colombo.
Port City Colombo – creating opportunities, building legacies.
