"NE neglected in educational development"-Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 April 2002, 19:00 GMT]
"Educational development projects which have been funded by the World Bank and other countries are being implemented only in Sinhala areas. No foreign funded educational development program has been implemented in Tamil areas. This is a shameful situation. It is a blatant and disgraceful discrimination of Tamil medium schools and Tamil medium education in this country," said Mr.R.Sampanthan, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group leader speaking at the committee stage debate on the votes of Ministry of Education in parliament Monday.

Mr.Sampanthan added "the Tamil medium education in the country particularly in the northeast will never attain a satisfactory position until such time we have a government which is in charge of education of our province. The attention being given to Tamil medium education presently in the country is far from satisfactory."

Referring to the shortcomings of Tamil medium schools, Mr.Sampanthan said: "I went to Eachilampaththu in Trincomalee district. I went to a school with 618 students. There were ten teachers in that school.

In Illankathithurai Muhathuwaram Tamil School I found ten teachers including the Principal for about 600 students studying up to the G.C.E. Ordinary Level class.

Mr.Sampanthan continued: "This is a pathetic situation. But nothing has happened so far. We have a shortage of 4500 teachers in the Tamil medium schools in the Northeast Province. In the rest of the country there are several thousands of teachers who are in excess. There were three thousand Tamil medium teachers to be appointed. Not one appointment was made during the election period between the date of the dissolution and the date of commencement of the new parliament. Suddenly after the interviews for the volunteer teachers and graduates were over, the whole thing has been suspended. I want these appointments done very early. I urge the Minister of education not to delay these appointments any longer and not to allow officials to delay any longer."