Moving forward - schools in the North

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP

Brighter future for Northern children

One of the more perceptive foreign observers of Sri Lanka spoke to me with some regret last week about the enormous time and energy wasted in rebuttal of various allegations against the country. I could not have agreed more with his regrets, but I had to note that all this was made necessary by the perverse performances of a few Western commentators and politicians.

The manner in which the Darusman Report is being abused is indeed truly astonishing. I am indebted to my father for the comparison he made with what is happening now, and what J R Jayewardene did to Mrs Bandaranaike. He appointed a Commission to look into various allegations made against her, claiming that this was simply a fact finding operation, and would have no judicial powers. Accordingly the Commission did not operate to judicial standards, and ended up recording and regurgitating a lot of hearsay.

Judicial decisions

J R however then rushed through a law which allowed Parliament to make what were in effect judicial decisions on the basis of the findings of the Commission. Parliament accordingly imposed an extreme sentence on Mrs Bandaranaike. The result, as I predicted at the time, as a political neophyte, but with common sense and a fair understanding of causes and consequences, was disaster for the country.

Children playing as life returns to normal in the North

I am sorry therefore to find what terms itself the International Community taking a leaf out of J R’s book. Recent developments in Geneva, where extraordinary excesses by Canada seem to have been put on the back-burner by a return to the inclusive strategy developed by Dayan Jayatilleke, suggest that the more sensible Western powers have realized how counter-productive selective assaults on a democratic nation can be. But human nature can be infinitely nasty, as Thucydides taught us centuries ago, and we must continue to be careful.

However, with ‘The Road to Reconciliation and its Enemies’ now published, I can take up the suggestion of my more sensible interlocutor, and try to write more positively.

I thought therefore to produce a few photo essays on the good work that is happening in the North, giving the lie to the falsehoods that the rump of the LTTE propagates, and which gullible politicians regurgitate.

International Crisis Group

Recently the deplorable Siobhain McDonagh repeated what the International Crisis Group had claimed, that we resettled the displaced in places ‘devoid of the most basic amenities’. I suspect that neither Ms McDonagh nor the ICG cares about evidence in the game they are playing, but I will present here pictures of the schools that are functioning in three of the districts of the North that I visited last week.

One is that of a school in Mannar, which also houses a Vocational Training Centre. I got there after school hours, but was delighted to find a Science teacher taking extra classes, while in another room - where I checked on English knowledge - students were studying Maths on their own.

This school was near the main Vavuniya-Mannar road, while the next two are some distance further North along the Mannar-Jaffna road. The primary school is off the main road, but the other is some distance into the interior.

Priority for education

The immense concentration of students caught in the photograph suggests the importance attached to learning even in a small rural community, and also that government was right to plough major resources into rebuilding schools and ensuring that books and uniforms were available. If ICG thinks that basic amenities are lacking, they obviously have no sense of values.

The next pictures are from Kayts, one of primary students concentrating hard on my greetings, the other, with girls raising their hands in answer to a question about Ordinary Level results, from the much larger school fed by a number of smaller ones. It seemed very well run, with an efficient and dedicated principal.

The next pictures are from a school in a recently resettled area of Mullaitivu. Some classes are conducted under the trees, but new buildings are coming up rapidly, and the older children already have fully furnished classrooms.

To be continued