In this compilation of 25 essays on Sri Lanka’s education written over a span of about 15 years, Panduka Karunanayake captures the momentous changes in the field through almost two centuries through a telescopic lens, and delves into its current main problems through a wide-angle lens. How exactly are education, society and economics entwined? What is the current status of the Kannangara reforms? What is the role of the private sector in university education? What is the role of the university in society? Karunanayake analyses these issues with a keen eye for detail and a broad approach covering several disciplines, while also retaining in the background the focus on secular trends and global changes. These thought-provoking essays, backed up by richly detailed endnotes and an extensive bibliography, would capture the interest of everyone with an irrepressible concern about how education can contribute towards – and why it has singularly failed in – Sri Lanka’s nation-building.