Sri Lanka has decided to cancel exams for millions of students because the country is out of paper and the government doesn’t have the money to guarantee imports. Government officials have announced that final exams, due to start on Monday, will be postponed indefinitely for at least two-thirds of the country’s 4.5 million students. “The school administration cannot organize tests because the printers cannot guarantee foreign exchange to import the paper and ink they need,” the education ministry of the country’s western province said in a statement.
Sri Lanka is grappling with the worst financial crisis since gaining independence from the UK in 1948. Food, fuel and medicines are in dire shortages across the country. Across the country, long queues have formed at gas stations and in front of shops to buy groceries: the government has introduced rationing of milk powder, sugar, lentils and rice. In recent days, the government has asked the International Monetary Fund for help in resolving the financial crisis: it has $6.9 billion in debt to pay off by this year, but its foreign exchange reserves are around $2.3 billion.