‘Every child in school programme’ to be inaugurated in NE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 January 2003, 13:22 GMT]
‘Every child in school programme’ sponsored by the UNICEF in the northeast province will be inaugurated in Trincomalee Thursday, 9 January, morning by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Education and Cultural Affairs Dr.Karunasena Kodituwakku.

Around seventy five thousand children will be enrolled into Grade One in all schools in the northeast and border villages adjoining the northeast under this scheme and the UNICE will donate school kits to every newly enrolled children, sources said.

Minister of School Education Mr.Suranimala Rajapakse will participate as guest of honour. The resident UNICEF representative in Colombo Mr. Ted Chaiban will also attend the event.

The North East Provincial Ministry of Education estimates around 56,615 students would be admitted this year into Grade 1 in the province alone and about nineteen thousand children will be enrolled in schools located in boarder areas of other provinces, sources said.

UNICEF sources said more children would be enrolled into Grade One this year compared to past as the twenty year old war has ceased with signing of the Cease-fire Agreement between the government and the LTTE.

Until the ceasefire agreement came into force, educational facilities to several thousand children had been denied as their parents stayed in welfare and refugee camps. Now the situation has changed and more people from refugee camps and welfare centres are slowly returning to their villages, sources said.

Of the 56615 students expected to be enrolled around twenty five percent of them (14,908) will be enrolled in schools in the Ampara district which is divided into education zones. Twenty percent (11307) will be enrolled in schools in Batticaloa district which is divided into three zones and Jaffna district with five education zones is expected to admit around 16 percent of the children Grade one (9093).

The detail of the rest of the districts in the NE is given below:

Trincomalee district (three education zones)-8369

Vavuniya district (two zones)-4530

Mullaitivu district (two zones)- 3731

Killinochchi district (one zone)-3210

Mannar district (two zones)- 2177.

The inaugural event of the ‘Every Child in School Programme’ will be held in St.Mary's College (Tamil medium), Sinhala medium Sinhala Madhya Maha Vidyalayam and Tamil medium Zahira Muslim Maha Vidyalayam.