Grade-1 school enrolments up

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 January 2003, 02:16 GMT]
After a marked decline in admissions to Grade 1 in NorthEast schools for the last twenty years, the numbers have reached a record high this year, said Karunasena Kodituwaku, Minister of Education, in a report published today. In the last two days only the numbers admitted to Grade-1 reached seventy thousand, sources in Jaffna said.

War, poverty, displacement, occupation of schools by the Sri Lanka military and militarization of population centers were factors contributing to decline in education in North East, Tamil education officials said.

With the climate of peace that has prevailed from the date of the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the on-going peace process have brought renewed interest in education, officials added.

UNICEF distributed packages containing school supplies to Grade-1 students further encouraging students to attend school to further their education.