A friend in need
France has always
been a close friend of Sri Lanka and many are the times the
French Government has come to our assistance in times of need.
This trait was witnessed in the aftermath of the tsunami
catastrophe too when France dispatched both men and material to
assist the distressed.
This was particularly seen in the medical field when the
French Government and its agencies dispatched teams of experts
to deal with the thousands of victims and also handle the post
trauma aspect of the afflicted.
Once again France has come to the assistance of Sri Lanka -
this time to help alleviate the conditions of the IDPs. As
reported in our inside pages yesterday, the French Government
has made arrangements to donate two hospitals to treat the IDPs.
One of the hospitals consisting of 35 beds and 25 doctors has
been set up at Chettikulam in Mannar while the other hospital
comprising 100 beds donated by Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF)
will be set up at Manik Farm, Vavuniya. The Government of Sri
Lanka no doubt would be enamoured by this gesture of the French
Government.
The Government on its part had lost no time in taking steps
to attend to the thousands of the sick and the wounded among the
deluge that fled the LTTE. True, the physical and mental
devastation subjected to by these people is out of the ordinary
and the Government will need all the national and international
assistance it could muster to ease the suffering of these
people.
No doubt the Sri Lankan Government would need several such
hospitals to satisfactorily treat the large number of IDPs who
are afflicted with wide range of ailments not to mention gun
shot wounds and mutilation under the LTTE. Hopefully, similar
assistance will pour in once the full magnitude of the plight of
the IDPs becomes known to the outside world.
For the moment, whatever assistance in the interim to
alleviate the suffering of these people are welcome and as
before the French Government has once again stepped into fill
the breach.
No doubt the Government is confronted with a huge challenge
to bring back the stricken IDPs back not just to their former
selves but beyond that into a new life, away from the nightmares
of their former lives. It is not just their physical conditions
that needs healing but also the deep mental scars of three
decades of war have to be addressed.
A project much bigger in scale than the post tsunami recovery
will have to be put in motion to address this aspect. Health
Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has said that hospitals in the
North were facing a staff shortage and promised to resolve the
problem soon.
This is the time for our doctors, nurses and other medical
staff to rise to the occasion and volunteer to take up
assignments at these hospitals. They would not only be
performing a noble task but would also be complementing the
troops who are engaged in humanitarian mission similar to
theirs.
The massive flood of goods, materials and other donations
that are being collected from the general public on behalf of
the IDPs are a clear indication that the country as a whole is
in tune with this line of thinking. It is a noteworthy
development that augurs well unity, brotherhood and national
reconciliation.
Another O/L crash
Once again this
year’s GCE O/L results have made appalling reading. A high 49
percent have failed in Maths and 55 percent in science subjects.
What is more serious is the staggering 69 percent “F”s in
English.
The situation is so alarming that a top level conference was
summoned where Examinations Chief Anura Edirisinghe had briefed
the Education Secretary on the deteriorating standards of the
GCE O/L Examination. According to an Education Ministry
official, this year’s results were even worse than last year
where the standards plummeted to an all time low.
The heavy failure rate even in the Sinhala language paper
clearly shows that is something inherently wrong with the
current system and that a complete overhaul is needed. Is it
that, today, there is less time devoted to study by the young
with so many attractions and diversions to take away the
attention or is it the shortcomings in the prevailing teaching
methods and the structure in operation.Are we still imbued in
teaching methods that are moribund and obsolete which have no
attraction to the present day young?
The Ministry of Education needs to do some serious thinking
before the situation deteriorates even further. What this means
is this year there will be less students entering the Advanced
Level stream. Not the ideal recipe for a country striving to
catch up with the fast moving world.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa we believe would move in the
matter and call for suggestions and remedies from experts in the
field to arrest this alarming trend.Lest we be left with a
country devoid of a generation of educated which the Government
is relying on to achieve its massive development goals.
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