School children’s relief items piles up at the MoE- CTU
View(s):Relief material collected by schoolchildren for disaster victims are stacked in school premises without any effective plan to distribute them to the affected areas, claims the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU), yesterday.
CTU General Secretary, Joseph Stalin said that, in response to the school authorities’ appeal to students in national and provincial schools, it is learned, they have brought exercise books, water bottles and dry ration for the flood affected students and families, which are being distributed in plenty by the Govt and other social agents to the flood victims.
“Instead of specifying what is exactly needed to clean up or restore classrooms to a functional state, the school authorities have asked students to just bring relief items to help the victims. They could have asked for essential items such as stationery for the office-computer room, detergents and other items that would help school authorities put back classrooms in order,” he said.
Mr Stalin said there are 10,200 national and provincial schools with 4.2 million schoolchildren, and only 186 schools have been affected by the floods.  ”Most of the children have contributed even in little ways and it is all being stacked in the Education Ministry premises. These things will stay there for a long time and rot or else, slowly deplete because of unscrupulous persons who have access to these things,’ he said.
- Chrishanthi Christopher