Teachers and students protest in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 1999, 16:50 GMT]
Several teaching uniouns picketed outside the Education Zonal offices in Vavuniya today demanding full payment of risk allowance and the balance of salary arrears for shool principals.

As a result schools in the district were closed and the Education Zonal Offices were unable to function, sources said.

@@file1@@Students in Vavuniya are seen demonstrating demanding the immediate opening of a route into the LTTE held areas of the Vanni.

Almost a thousand teachers from Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim communities in Vavuniya took part in the demonstration.

The demonstration was organised by the Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union, Ceylon Independent Teachers Union, Ceylon Muslim Teachers Union, Sri Lanka Independent Teachers Union and the Ceylon Teachers Union, sources said.

Meanwhile three university students' uniouns staged a protest outside the Vavuniya kacheri today demanding immediate arrangements for an access route into the Vanni so that food, medicine and the GCE A/L examination papers can be taken into the LTTE held areas.

The handed over a memorandum addressed to the President to K.Ganesh, the Government Agent in Vavuniya.

The students of the University Students Union of Vavuniya District, Students Union of Vavuniya Campus and the students of the Eastern University Union took part in the demonstration.

@@file2@@Vavuniya teachers from the Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala communities are seen blockading the entrance to the Department of Education in Vauniya.

The students urged the President to open a safe route to the Vanni to enable the officials to transport stationery and question papers to the 4000 candidates who are ready to appear for the GCE A/L examination scheduled to commence on August 2.

They had pointed out that 400 University students who visited their parents in the areas held by the LTTE are stranded in the Vanni and are unable to return to their studies as there is no route to the Vanni.