Education ministry charged with discrimination

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 March 1999, 18:20 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamils Teacher's Union (CTTU) has brought to the notice of the President, Chandrika Bandaranayake, and the Minister of Education and Higher Education, Mr. Richard Pathirana, the discrimination shown by the authorities in distributing Tamil text books to Tamil medium schools in the country.

Mr.T.Mahasivam, general secretary of the CTTU, has said that Tamil medium schools in the country have not got the full quota of the Tamil text books.

Only one-third (1/3) of the quota has been distributed up to February this year. Not a single year 6 Tamil medium student has been provided with text books for the subjects Maths and English (reading).

Likewise the year 9 students have not got text books for the subjects Hygiene, Science and technology, Social Studies, History, English (reading) and English (practical).

In the Jaffna peninsula more Sinhala text books for teaching Sinhala have been distributed without teachers to teach Sinhala.

In Jaffna Hindu College, 225 year 6 students have got 225 Sinhala text books and 24 Tamil text books. In Jaffna Central College 230 year 6 students have got 230 Sinhala text books and 25 Tamil text books.

180 Students in Jaffna-Vembadi girl's high school have got 200 Sinhala text books. But not a single Tamil text book has been given to these students, Mr.Mahasivam stated.

Meanwhile, a delegation of the CTTU is to meet the Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Mr.Andrew De Silva, today (02.03.99) at his Colombo office, regarding the alleged discrimination shown in distributing Tamil text books to Tamil medium schools in the country.

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