Tamils' history to be taught to Jaffna students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 September 2003, 20:09 GMT]
The Thamileelam Education Development Board (TEDB) is to introduce a new textbook to teach the history of Tamils in Sri Lanka to students in the Jaffna district from January next year, and in preparation to the implementation of the project, the TEDB is now engaged in holding a workshop on "Thamileelam social education and history" for teachers who teach Grade 6 and Grade 7 students in the peninsula, Jaffna education sources said.

The Jaffna District Education Board of the TEDB jointly with the respective zonal education offices conducts these workshops, sources said.

Workshops were already held for teachers serving in the islets off Jaffna at the Vembadi Girls High School in Jafna and for Valigamam teachers at Chunnakam Ramanathan College. Workshops are being held in other education zones in the peninsula, officials said.

Lectures were given on various topics such as Tamil homeland and Sinhala colonization, Vanni Tamil Kingdoms, Tamil rule in Sri Lanka, Political relationship between Sri Lanka and South India, National Flag and Thamileelam Liberation Struggle, Maha Vamsam, Jaffna Tamil Kingdoms and Water and Land resources of Thamileelam by leading Tamil academicians serving in universities and schools in the north and Vanni districts, education sources said.

Several Tamil academics have said that the Tamil medium textbooks prepared by the National Institute of Education contain distortions of the history of Tamils in the country, and the textbooks are mere translation of Sinhala textbooks prepared by Sinhala educationists to suit their chauvinistic thinking.

The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) some time back took up this issue and demanded that a separate NIE should be established for the northeast province to write Tamil medium textbooks to avoid distortion of the history of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The government has not taken any positive steps regarding this demand, education sources said.

The TEDB has now decided to introduce the new textbook to Tamil students without affecting the public examinations, which are now conducted by the Sri Lankan government, education sources said.