Colombo 'commissions' education for structural war on Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 November 2008, 13:28 GMT]
Beginning from curriculum, school textbooks, teachers, educational administrators and resources to the destruction of the existing educational infrastructure in the guise of war, the structural violence committed by the Sri Lankan state against Tamils has been condemned by the Trincomalee MP, Mr. Thurairetnasingam in a parliamentary debate on Friday. “An ethnicity can be devastated by the destruction of its education, and that’s what this government is bent on doing in the North and East”, said the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, while exposing the short term and long term ‘conspiracies’ of the Colombo government in ruining the education of Tamils.

"Sri Lanka government, while allocating 177 billion rupees to war expenditures, has earmarked only 27 billion rupees for education which indicates its lopsided priority to war than the sphere of education which is indispensable for a nation to keep abreast with the general development and well being of any country in the world," he added.

Apart from the details and statistics how the Tamils are snatched away of their education through government policies as well as its war on Tamils, the MP also brought to light certain fundamental issues that are aimed to destroy the foundations of Tamil education.

One such was the preparation of the textbooks in Sinhala and translating them in Tamil and that too in a substandard language.

He also came out with his strong concern about the ‘cultural stress’ faced by the Tamil and Muslim students when their legacies are denied in the textbooks.

"While the government continues to attack civilian settlements, schools and public buildings with its continuing artillery fire and aerial bombings in the north and east of the country where Tamil students in their thousands and hundreds of teachers are severely affected, the government urges them to celebrate the victory of Poonakari and this is something that has to be counted as an act of debasing the students for belonging to the Tamil ethnic group" Thurairatnasingam, further said in his speech.

"How could the students and teachers in the Vanni concentrate on educational activities when artillery shells and Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher fired shells fall and explode close to their schools? This is what is happening especially in the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi now," Thurairatnasingam said.

Due to the prevailing military offensives 26,168 students, 754 teachers and 395 office staff of Ki'linochchi Education Zone have been displaced while 12,500 of these students have not been placed in any schools at all. 2,500 students from Thu'nukkaay Education Zone and 10,000 students from Ki'linochchi Education Zone are among the 12,500 students denied of their education, according to the detailed statistics given by the MP.

33 schools of the total 36 schools in Madu Education Zone have been totally affected forcing around 8000 students and 175 teachers to displace to Ki'linochchi seeking refugee away from government military offensives and nearly 1,500 of these students remain without schools.

"Apart from these impediments to education in Vanni they are further aggravated by the lack of fuel denying the students to study during nights where electricity is a thing long lost. Parents are reluctant to send their children to school in fear of the shelling and bombing while those attending schools have to follow classes in damaged buildings and under trees, bereft of proper furniture," the MP said.

"As almost all people in Vanni depend on relief food the students go on an empty stomach to school and this again curtails their capacity to learn," he added.

"The students in the eastern province which the government claims to have taken into its control are subjected to the same condition. In Trincomalee district 16 schools in Verukal and Eeachchilampaththai and 17 schools in Moothoor Education Zone do not function," Thurairatnasingam said.

"Sri Lanka Army has declared Champoor east as High Security Zone and this has caused the closure of 7 schools affecting nearly 1,700 students. The same fate has befallen 89 schools in Paduvaankarai and 16 schools in Vaakarai and Kathiravea'li areas where the furniture and other school equipments have been robbed" he added.

Speaking on the situation of schools and education in Jaffna district the MP said that the presence of Sri Lanka Army camps close to the schools in Jaffna peninsula causes harassment and inconvenience to the students and teachers in the form of checking, cordon and searches conducted at will, suddenly imposed curfews besides the killings and other human rights violations that take place unchecked.

The other issues MP Thurairatnasingam dealt with in the debate included Man power resources, Data Technology Education, Non-teaching staff, Sri Lanka Education Administrative Service, Sri Lanka Principals Service, Sri Lanka Teachers Service, Voluntary Teachers, Physical resources, Higher Education, Free Text books and Educational Reform.

Mr. Thurairatnasingam made special mention of the difficulties encountered by students who had lost their Education Department examination certificates due to the war offensives and who cannot appear for interviews for jobs and other similar opportunities. He urged the examination department to expedite such cases which are forwarded through the heads of schools and educational officials.

A document prepared by a committee headed by Mrs. Santhi Sachithanantham and contributed Professor S. Chandraksekaram, T. Thanaraj, senior lecturer and Dr. Karunanidhi, senior lecturer of the Colombo University on behalf of the Vizhuthu Foundation had been attached by the MP for parliamentary records with his speech. The full text of the document follows:

EDUCATION
"Education is a cultural process, more than a mere technical accomplishment. That is why educationists all over the world stress on the importance of the mother tongue as a medium of learning for children. Education is also a political process of enabling the social mobility and empowerment of a community. This is why we need to look at education issues from the point of view of the communities in this country.

"It is very much true that Sri Lanka's achievements in school education is praiseworthy compared to similar countries in our part of the world. Our enrolment rate, literacy rates, availability of schools and other institutions are very high which can be compared with that of developed countries. Thanks to the vision of people like CWW Kannankara and others who were the architects of the education system of post-independent Sri Lanka. But what happened to the noble aspirations of those great men ? Did education help to build a Sri Lanka where all communities live in peace and harmony? Did education contribute for the development of our human resource without discrimination to the different communities of this countries?

"The answer is an emphatic " NO".. Education has been used to develop one community and destroy the intellectual capability of other communities in this country.Today we wish to draw the attention of the House the injustices done to the Tamil children and to Tamil medium education since the later part of 1950s. First lets begin with the preparation and the distribution of Text books. While the Sinhala children get their Text books at the beginning of the year, the Tamil medium children have to wait many months to get their books. Sometimes some books are never delivered to them. This is not because of the logistics of sending books to North East. Even Tamil medium children in Colombo schools don't get their books on time. But the Sinhala children and the Tamil children have to sit the same examinations. This issue is brought to light again and again but why nothing is done to improve this situation. The Deputy Minister of Education is a Tamil. Why he cant do anything about this sordid situation. Why you discriminate the Tamil medium child?

"Then what about the content of those history and social studies book. Did they give adequate recognition of the culture and legacy of the Tamils and Muslims. No. Most of the books are simply translations of the Sinhala books which feel very shy to recognize the great contributions and sacrifices done by the Tamils and Muslims for the development of the countries. Why do you prepare text books with Sinhala Buddhist orientation and bias in a multi ethnic , multi religious and multi lingual country. Did the text books reflect what the Army Commander uttered recently?

"Then I will take the recruitment of teachers and their training. The national teacher pupil ratio is 1:19 which is better than many developed countries. But the Tamil medium ratio is 1: 21 . It means there is a severe shortage of Tamil medium teachers in the country. Qualified Tamil graduates and young people are unemployed. So why there is shortage of teachers in Tamil schools only? If you don't appoint adequate number of teachers the education of Tamil medium children will suffer. This is a systematic attempt to destroy the education of Tamil children. The other institution which is instrumental for this kind of discrimination is the National Institute for Education (NIE). This institution alone is entrusted with the responsibility of formulation of curriculum for all classes from year 1 – year 13, writing up of text books until recently and training teachers and other educational personnel in this country. Although established in 1985, it never had adequate Tamil medium officers to date. I understand that Institute never appointed Tamil medium officers for certain subjects. I also understand that for the last five years there is not a single Tamil medium trainer to train school principals. How do you train Tamil speaking education personnel in Sinhala?

"Why cant you recruit adequate number of Tamil speaking officers in the NIE ? It is again a planned conspiracy to destroy Tamil education. If there are no qualified Trainers then the Tamil medium Teachers and principals cant be properly trained and as a result the education of the Tamil medium children will suffer. I understand that all the six Asst. Director General are Sinhalese. Why cant you appoint one Tamil medium person as an ADG so that he or she can look after the Tamil medium education at the NIE.

"Same with the SLEAS (Sri Lanka Education Administration Service) officers.I understand that in Eastern Province alone at least 200 cadres are needed but now only 60 are available. In the plantation areas 112 are needed but only 25 have been appointed. The class 1 SLEAS officers who are the National and Provincial directors are only 2 in the Tamil medium. Due to this heavy shortage of education administrators various principals are expected to perform administrative duties resulting in the neglect of their school duties. To add insult to injury their administrative work is also not carried out properly as there is scant regard for principals who are doing the job of SLEAS officers in education offices.

"We think that the fault lies with first of all the disregard shown by the Ministry in taking positive steps to rectify this imbalance. So much so that the recruitment process is oblivious to the needs of the minority communities, especially those living in pockets in the South. All applicants are listed together in one row and selected on the basis of both merit as well as connections. When the majority are Sinhala speaking how can the Tamil speaking applicants edge in? That is how they get knocked out. When there is a separate Tamil medium, the recruitment must be carried out as a parallel process, and not subsumed within the Sinhala stream. All this shows the need to decentralize the recruitment processes so that it can be need based in terms of medium of instruction and the region. That is what the 13th amendment which is now a much touted solution (although way too late) is talking about. It will do well for the government to implement these structures on the ground, for which no North victory is needed.

"Since we are in the process of enacting a new Education Act which is very much needed, please think about finding ways and means in the Act to rectify all the anomalies and discriminations you have done to the Tamil medium education for the last 50 years. We need viable policies regarding recruitment of teachers , education officers and others to suit the needs of the various communities in the country. Our communities are not at the same level of development. There is negligence in terms of geographical locations, ethnicity and language. We need to have legislation that will allow policy formulation to address the varying needs of our different communities. Look how India is addressing these issues and the various strategies it adopt to bring equity and equality among her citizens. Education should be a tool to bring cohesion and harmony among communities in this country . It should not be used as a weapon to promote the majority community and at the expense of other communities."