Appeal to ease education embargo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 July 1999, 16:49 GMT]
The Minister of Education and Higher Education Mr.Richard Pathirana is to request the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to lift its ban on transporting teaching materials to schools in Vanni region, which is not under the control of the SLA, once the Governor of the North East Province sends his approval with a list of items which may be sent.

Mr.Upasena Senenayake, Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Education is reported to have confirmed this at the discussion he had with a delegation of the Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU), on Wednesday evening at his office in Colombo.

The delegation of the CTTU requested that the ban on transporting of computers, chemicals and other equipment needed for teaching and studying in schools in the Vanni, should be lifted immediately, to ensure equal opportunity in education development to all students.

The Additional Secretary further told the delegation of the CTTU that the Ministry would instruct all officials concerned to have correspondence in Tamil language with Tamil teachers serving outside the north east province in the country.

Furthermore, officials would be instructed to conduct Principals' meetings in Tamil language the Additional Secretary reportedly said.

The Additional Secretary's comments were in response to the demand made by the delegation of the CTTU that education officials were having correspondence and conducting meetings in Sinhala language with Tamil teachers and principals serving outside the north east province.