Students Forced To Kneel In School For Failing To Bring Money

October 6, 2014

Good governance activist Chandra Jayaratne has written to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka seeking a public clarification on promoting awareness and educating all citizens on human rights, following on an incident in a leading government school where students had been publicly humiliated simply because they failed to bring a certain amount of money they had been instructed to bring.

Jayarathne, in his letter to the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has stated that he noticed this incident when the school had made an announcement – which even those who are residing in the vicinity of the school could hear – listing out all the names of the students who failed to bring a certain payment while ordering them to kneel before the school administration and the peers.

He says that thereafter the students had been informed to bring the money to the school without fail on the first working day this week, although it is illegal to collect money from students in government schools according to the various circulars that have been issued by the Education Ministry.

Jayarathne has questioned that in a day and age where school teachers are made to kneel before students by politicians, the kind of precedent this incident has set by forcing students to kneel and feel humiliated simply because they failed to bring money to the school.

He has requested the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka to issue a public clarification on the incident along with necessary recommendations on the rights and obligations of the stakeholders of schools, so that it would help effectively promote ‘respect for, and observance of, fundamental rights’.

We publish below the statement in full;                                                    Read More