No moves to remove history and religion from schools: Education Minister
View(s):Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam vehemently denied allegations that there are moves to remove history and religion from the school syllabus. He said though there is a plan to bring down the number of core subjects from eight to six, history, language and religion will not be removed from the syllabus.
“Neither the Education Ministry nor the National Institute of Education have plans to remove these from core subjects. However, the National Education Commission, that has no powers to remove or make changes to school syllabus, has proposed to merge history, civics and geography and have one subject called citizenship education and social studies. This is the reason for the outcry over removal of history. There will be no such removal,” the Minister said.
He stressed that the accusation of removing religion, history and language as subjects had no base and was made up by politicians and even misleading the clergy. Last week, the Chief Prelate of Malwatte, Ven Dimbulkumbure Wimaladhamma Thero expressed concern about the alleged plans to remove history from school syllabuses.
The Minister pointed out that the present syllabus in schools was introduced in 2015, and new changes were being made by a team of education industry experts. “The expert committee suggestion was to bring down the number of core subjects from eight to six, but not removing language, religion and history from the syllabus. It is our social responsibility to make changes to the education system to suit present and future challenges, while preserving our history, culture and language,” the Minister said. (NF)