Govt to do away with gender, ethnic based school identification

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

The government will shortly do away gender and ethnic based school catagorisation to promote greater interaction and harmony among different groups of students, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said.

He said the new rule will not apply to mixed schools. The minister was addressing while participating at a function at Wellawaya Kumaradasa Maha Vidyalaya.

Gunawardena said schools of various categories and denominations have been set up from time to time throughout the country based on ethnicity, religion and gender.

"There are boys' schools, girls' schools, Sinhala schools, Tamil schools, Muslim schools, Catholic schools, Buddhist schools, etc. This has created unnecessary issues among the student community in such schools. No such 'categorised' schools will be set up in the future save for mixed schools," the minister said.

He said this will help bring together different groups of students while creating better understanding and harmony.