Pre-school Committees to be elected in the North-East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 April 2004, 23:15 GMT]
Elections of 13-member executive committees of the Pre-school Education Development Centre (PSEDC) are being held throughout North-East, and Committee members will be elected from General Councils comprising parents, administrators, teachers and government officers from Education and Health Departments, Pradeshiya Sabahs (regional councils) and Non-Governmental Organisations, the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) said in a statement Thursday.

The full text of the statement follows:

"The North-East Province PSEDC is a bottom up structure established for the purpose of coordinating pre-school activities. It is supported and financially and materially assisted by the TRO. The objectives of the PSEDC are to ensure the provision of uniform quality standard education and care in pre-schools appropriate to the cultural and natural environment of the area, without any discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, religion and language, to all the children of age between 3 and 5 in the North-East Province.

"The enormous task of coordinating and ensuring standards in about 3000 pre-schools throughout North-East is borne by PSEDC with TRO’s support, due to the fact there is no government allocation for pre-school education. Therefore pre-school communities have to be mobilized and their participation and contribution harnessed for the development of pre-schools. For this purpose PSEDC committees at different levels – at pre-school, divisional, zonal, district and provincial levels – are elected with the participation of all the stakeholders involved in pre-school education.

"The Executive Committee of North-East Province PSEDC will be formed from the General Council representing all the 8 districts in North-East. Members of all the zonal PSEDC Executive Committees will be formed into the General Council of the North-East Province PSEDC. Already elections have been held in five of the education zones - Vavuniya South, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Thunukkai and Mullaitivu. Others are to be held soon."