'Dismiss distorted history protest' - Buddhist monks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 February 1999, 19:34 GMT]
The Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education today called off the talks with the delegation of the Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union when a group of Buddhist monks met him at his office and exerted pressure to cancel that appointment and not to withdraw the controversial Year 6 Tamil text book published by the Publication Department of the Education and Higher Education Ministry this year.

The Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union has demanded the withdrawal of Year 6 Tamil text book on environmental studies arguing that it consisted of articles distorting the history of Tamils in the island, hiding the fact that Yakkas and Nagas were the original settlers in Sri Lanka and claiming that Tamil speaking Dravidians came to Sri Lanka after the arrival of King Vijaya.

When the group of Buddhist monks left the ministry with the assurances from the Additional Secretary, Professor.L.S.Perera that the meeting with the CTTU delegation would be cancelled, the general secretary of the union was also informed of the decision.

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