Education had been put on the back-burner, during discussions and debates on vital issues and the sector was suffering due to lack of funds, S. Thomas’ Preparatory School headmaster, N.Y. Casie Chetty said at the College prize giving recently.
“With the end of the conflict, we have reason indeed to be cautiously optimistic that the sphere of education will receive the attention it desperately deserves and that the available monetary resources of the State will be allocated to it and other high priority areas essential to the development of the nation overall,” he said at the function, where well-known economist Nimal Sanderatne and his wife were chief guests.
Commenting on the end of the war he said, “the entire process of peace, reconciliation and harmony between ethnic communities would require time, sensitivity and firm resolve to bridge the differences and mistrust that had existed and to create an entirely new ethos in our land, where children from different ethnicity would cease to look upon one another with fear and hostility.”
“The end of the civil war has brought with it fresh challenges and new opportunities. An entire generation or more of our children have known nothing other than the brutality and barbarity of war, insecurity, hate, suspicion and fear.
“Therefore, the culture of anarchy must be replaced by a culture of peace, freedom, tolerance and harmony amongst the people of our land,” Mr. Cassie Chetty said. |
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