CTTU requests lifting ban on school materials

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 December 2000, 18:41 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) is to ask the new Education Minister Susil Premjayanth to take immediate steps to lift the ban imposed on the transportation of all materials needed for teaching to schools in the uncleared areas in the northeast province.

Mr.Mahasivan, General Secretary of the CTTU, says that this ban should be lifted with immediate effect to ensure to equal opportunity to Tamil medium students in the sphere of education.

This is one of the eight demands to be discussed with the new Education Minister when a high powered delegation of the CTTU is scheduled to meet him on Wednesday morning at the office of the Ministry of Education.

Some of the other demands are:

a) The cadres of Teacher Service, Principal Service, Sri Lanka Education Administration Service and Sri Lanka Education Service should be determined according to the ethnic ratio. Tamil medium teachers should be appointed to Tamil medium schools according to the ratio adopted in the Sinhala medium schools. At present Sinhala schools have been overstaffed with over 14000 Sinhala medium teachers. But the Tamil medium schools are understaffed.

b) Non-Tamils should not be appointed as Principals to Tamil schools. It should be noted that under no circumstances have any Tamils have been appointed as Principals to Muslim or Sinhala schools in the country. But there are several instances where non-Tamils have been appointed as Principals to Tamil schools. All non-Tamil Principals now attached to Tamil schools should be transferred out immediately.

c) Competent Tamil officers should be appointed to all government ministries and departments to carry out all correspondence and other official duties in the Tamil language.

d) Additional Secretaries should be appointed to all Provincial Ministries of Education in other seven provinces excluding northeast to look after the interests of Tamil and Muslim schools. It should be noted that in the North East Provincial Ministry of Education two Additional Secretaries have been appointed to look after the interests of Sinhala and Muslim schools separately.

e) Four Teacher Centers have been established in the north east province to cater to the needs of around 4000 Sinhala teachers. Likewise 15 Teacher Centers should be established in the other seven provinces to cater to the needs of around 15000 Tamil medium teachers serving there.

f) Immediate steps should be taken to ensure the printing and distribution of Tamil medium textbooks for the year 2001 to Tamil medium students in time and with no grammatical mistakes or other errors.