CTTU protests poor standard Tamil Texts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2000, 16:49 GMT]
The All Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU) has demanded the resignations of the Chairman of the National Institute of Education and the Director General of the Department of Educational Publications for having failed to prepare and print high standard Tamil medium school textbooks without grammatical, spelling and factual errors.

The General Secretary of the CTTU, Mr.T.Mahasivam, has in a memorandum to President Ms Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge requested her to take stern disciplinary actions against Professor Lakshman Jayatilake, Chairman of the National Institute of Education and Mr.E.W.Abeyanaike, Director General of the Department of Educational Publications for destroying the education of Tamil medium students by distributing poor standard textbooks, ignoring instructions issued last year.

Mr.Mahasivam has brought to the notice of the President that last year also Tamil medium textbooks were printed and distributed with large number of grammatical, spelling and factual errors. When this was pointed out to the authorities, the President and the Minister of Education and Higher Education issued instructions to reconstitute the School Textbook Committee, Advisory Committee and the Writers Committee by providing equal representations to all three communities.

Mr. Mahasivam noted further that the Minister of Education and Higher Education and his deputy ordered the officials concerned to obtain the services of the CTTU , before printing Tamil medium textbooks.The Minister of Education and Higher Education and the Department of Educational Publications too accepted the advice given by the World Bank to obtain the co-operation of the CTTU in this regard. The Chairman of the NIE and the Director General of the DEP, this year, willfully ignored these instructions and advice and have prepared and printed poor standard Tamil medium textbooks according to their whims and fancies thus destroying the education of the Tamil medium students in the country.

"Hence we beg your Excellency to take immediate steps to safeguard the education of Tamil medium students in the island by taking stern disciplinary action against these officials. We take this opportunity to bring to your notice that poor standard textbooks will not help to uplift the education," said Mr.Mahasivam in his memorandum.