Colombo imposes restrictions on Tamil valour related symbolism in schools of North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2020, 22:26 GMT]
Director of Northern Provincial Department of Education Sellathurai Uthayakumar has instructed the school principals to “discipline” the sport meets held in the schools within the province not to use symbols associated with the armed struggle of Tamils in the house decorations. The move comes after the SL military intelligence monitored a trend in the schools of Vanni, where Tamil students and teachers have been using the symbolism of resistance against European colonialism as well as the Sinhala occupation in the sports events. Often, the winning “house decorations” of the sports meets depicted Pandaara Vanniyan or names of Tamil Eelam War Heroes (Maaveerar) in the titles, a principal of a renowned school in Vanni told TamilNet.

Mr Uthayakumar has issued a circular according to the instruction from the SL Department of Defence.

The SL Defence Ministry was characterising the use of resistance-related Tamil symbolism as the indoctrination of “terrorism” in the minds of young generation Tamils.

The SL departments of the unitary state mechanism are influencing the NPC that functions without an elected council through its bureaucracy, Tamil educationalists in Jaffna commented.

The SL Department of Education is also controlling the curriculum where Sinhala “heroes” are being introduced to indoctrinate Tamil students, they said.

Furthermore, the SL military under Gotabaya Rajapaksa wants Tamil schools to invite Sinhala military commanders as special guests of these events as it had imposed the ‘practice’ during the previous Rajapaksa administration.

In the meantime, the occupying Sinhala military was also offering sterilisation of schools as the schools were set to commence educational activities from Monday.

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