News
Officials betting on fuel for school resumption
View(s):By Chrishanthi Christopher
The Education Ministry has decided to resume all schools next week.
However, it will not be on Monday as scheduled but on Thursday, Ministry Secretary M. N. Ranasinghe said.
He said all schools countrywide will resume when the political situation returns to normalcy.
He hopes the fuel distribution will improve and public transport will be back to normal by then. The ministry will watch the situation on Thursday and Friday and then decide on the number of days in a week that schools should be open.
In the meantime, education sector trade unions said they had held a meeting with the secretary to discuss transport issues faced by teachers and students.
Galle Southland College teachers during an online class: Long hours of staring at small screens and lack of interaction with teachers and friends have made children lethargic. Some are avoiding classes. Pic by Shirangika Lokukarawita
Also, the disruption of education in the past three years due to the coronavirus disease pandemic and the political and economic crises were discussed.
Ceylon Teachers Services Union secretary Mahinda Jayasinghe said the discussions also focused on condensing the syllabus content and holding exams that have been delayed to school closures.
Mr Ranasinghe said proposals by the unions are being looked at.
Frequent school closures are discouraging children from attending school.
Many children in rural areas and in the plantations have given up on school, choosing to do minor jobs.
Financially stricken families have now turned to their children to supplement the family income.
One parent said the cost of living is so high that having a meal a day is a struggle.
The mid-day meal programme that was a life-line to school children that encouraged parents to send children to school has been interrupted. With school closures during the coronavirus disease pandemic, the programme has died a natural death.
The World Food Programme and Save the Children have called on the government to revive the programme.
The government has said the mid-day meal programme will resume in October with aid from the WFP.
Also, Save the Children said that its ‘food for education’ programme providing food to 887 schools in seven districts had been disrupted because of the school closures.
Moreover, the Sri Lanka Education Forum that had done a survey in rural areas, said that school closures have resulted in the cancellation of food distribution in schools in Hali-Ela, Jaffna, Deraniyagala, Hambantota, and Ampara.
Schools had been closed this year for a fourth time.
On the previous occasion, schools were closed in the first week of July. The education ministry announced the closure only for one week but had to continuously postpone the decision to resume due to the fuel scarcity that all but shut down public transport.
Initially, the decision was to close schools only in Colombo, the suburbs and towns across the country. But the fuel scarcity means no transport, and children in rural areas simply can not walk several kilometres every day to school. There is no public transport for teachers, either.
Further, online lessons suggested by the Education Department also had lost its glow. Many children are losing interest in studies. Long hours of staring at small screens and lack of interaction with teachers and friends have made them lethargic. Some are avoiding classes.
In the provinces, only a few families can afford internet data packages or have smartphones.
A survey by Save the Children has found that two out of five households cannot afford mobile data. There is no internet access in some remote areas.
CTU district secretary for Kurunegala, Mr R. M. Ratnayake said even reload cards are not available in most areas as distributors have not come for weeks, if not months, due to the fuel scarcity. “Not even 5% students can afford. Everyone is in a deep financial crisis,’’ he said.
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