Chaos in Kurunegala over child’s admission to a school

2016-03-05

The need of education for every child is mentioned in the UNHCR mandate, and also the UNICEF policy on children’s education   is quoted as thus , “We are committed to ensuring that all children – regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background or circumstances – realize their right to a quality education.

To that end, UNICEF supports innovative programmes and initiatives that focus on the world’s most excluded and vulnerable children, including girls, the disabled, ethnic minorities, the rural and urban poor, victims of conflict and natural disasters and children affected by HIV and AIDS.’’  

Sri Lanka has a society which believes in anything which has “special’’ interest, which of course comes with the social background ,  and   give wings to any  story  without getting it confirmed first. This reminds us of the phrase saying ‘’ Making mountains out of molehills’’  and the burning incident in Kuliyapitiya  has raised such  concern, where a small child who had qualified for grade one admission was not admitted to the school due to a rumour which that his mother was HIV positive.

This implies a question of  how justifiable this accusation has been. Whatever the real circumstances might be , for a child of 6 years it is too much of a pressure, since he knows nothing of the situation. This was specially when it was proved that he was not infected with the deadly disease.

This bizarre, but heart warming issue did not take long to be exposed through the media, both internationally and locally.  After informing the necessary authorities, educational and divisional secretariats, the child was granted permission to enter Bohandiya Kanishta Vidyalaya , Kuliyapitiya , the closest school to his house.  

Though the child’s mother had appealed to the School authorities for her child to be taken to the school, they have not given an ear to it. Chandani De Soysa, the child’s mother , finally lodged a complaint at the Human Rights commission regarding this  problem.

The parents and the principal of the school were in unison in refusing child’s admission, even parents threatening to remove their children from the school if the child was taken in. Because of this problem, his admission to the school had been delayed. Rumours were spread fast saying that the child’s father was HIV positive, and the mother had been infected with the same disease.

 The  inquired from the relevant authorities about the situation, so that necessary steps were taken to solve the matter.  The  asked Ms. Kanchana  Subasinghe,  Kurunegala District Coordinating officer for the  Sri Lanka  Child Protection Authority  , about the situation.

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