A matter of principle

School principals are in the news these days. At the time of writing some principals were preparing to handover their resignation letters to the Education authorities over unresolved grievances. Today it is the turn of another batch of principals to hit the headlines, this time for committing a serious faux pas that caused panic all round.

Yesterday we carried a front page story that over 200 children from several schools in Trincomalee have been rushed to hospital for suspected food poisoning. It was also reported that a 62 year man had died. It has now transpired that the schoolchildren were rushed to hospital at the instance of the school principals on unfounded evidence based on four fishermen taking ill after consuming fish buns.

The principals perhaps assumed that, the those students who ate buns too were similarly affected. The death of one of the fishermen may have sparked an alarm coupled with the sealing of a bakery in the area.

A specialist dispatched from the Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry found that the egg and fish buns taken to sea were contaminated with bacteria resulting in fishermen falling victim to food poisoning.

All barring nine students were discharged, the latter suffering from shock. True, the school principals may have dispatched the children to hospital out of an abundance of caution. But according to reports, this had caused a huge commotion with parents and students alike running helter skelter resulting in a chaotic situation.

School principals, of all people however should know better than to give into precipitate action that would result in panic and disorder. On the contrary they should be the embodiment of resolute calm and confidence and inspire awe among their charges. This capitulation to a sudden whim was not the ideal way to inspire such confidence.

The evidence by no stretch of the imagination warranted rushing students en masse to hospital. The false alarm should make school authorities think twice before getting into a panic. This is more so given the security situation in the country and the modus oprandi of the terrorists to thrive on panic.

An exemplary decision

A Bikkhu who counts 20 years in the Public service has volunteered to serve in the North. According to our front page story yesterday the Ven. Warapitiye Rahula Thera a Grade One Social Service Officer attached to the Sri Jayawardenapura Divisional Secretariat Office has made a request from President Mahinda Rajapaksa seeking an immediate transfer as a DSO in Jaffna. He says that his primary intention is to serve the people of the North considering it as a most urgent requirement and to lend assistance to the humanitarian mission of the heroic Armed Forces.

How many of today's Government servants would readily accept a transfer to a 'difficult' area in the South let alone the far flung North just emerging from an armed conflict?

It is not as if Jaffna was a favourite outpost for political transfers in the past and 'punishment' transfers were not confined only to the khakied type. Even civil servants who displeased the authorities were given the same treatment.

Therefore Jaffna was considered a sort of gulag where errant public servants were consigned to and an outpost to be avoided at any cost.

It is in this light that the venerable monk's decision to volunteer to serve in the North should be viewed. Ven. Rahula Thera has by his act led the way for others to follow.

For, with the normalisation process gradually taking hold there will be a heavy demand for public officials from the South to perform stints in the liberated areas if the Government's rebuilding program is to succeed. There is therefore a need to get used to the fact that the North too is part and parcel of the national polity and for all public servants to accept the inevitable. They should all put their shoulder to the development process that is to start in all earnest in the coming days, enduring all difficulties and hardships. It is hoped that the Ven. Rahula Thera's act would prove a catalyst in this respect.

All the efforts of our valiant soldiers would be in vain if their victories are not followed by development and economic progress in the liberated North. For this we will need experts and technocrats who should be on the field rather than direct operations from air-conditioned offices in Colombo.

Our public servants should take up the challenge to offer their services in the development of the war ravaged areas. While helping the emancipation of the people of the North this would also help in the much needed integration process. In this respect the Ven. Rahula Thera has shown us the way.