Most of the schools in Sri Lanka are maintained by the government as a part of the free education. Currently there are 10,012 government schools with a student population of 4.2 million and 235,924 teachers, 736 Pirivenas and also 104 private schools with 127,968 students.<> With the establishment if the provincial council system in the 1980s the central government handed control of most schools to local governments. However the old schools which had been around since the colonial times were retained by the central government, this creating three types of government schools;