News
Condemned to lives of poverty
View(s):Story and pix by Kanchana Kumara Ariyadasa
Rural schools in the Matale district are witnessing high dropout rates among students between the ages of 8 and 10. Extreme poverty is said to be the cause of this phenomenon and many of these children are found to be working as manual labourers in sand mining, brick making, farming and in fisheries.
Parents admit they would like to give their children an education, but the dire straits they are in makes it difficult to even provide the children with basic needs. They added that because of poverty their children face discrimination at school. Some parents said there were instances where schools had denied admission to their children claiming they are substandard.
Hapugasyaya in the Naula Divisional Secretariat has the highest dropout rate and is one of the worst affected
villages. Though government proposes that every child in the country should pursue education up to the GCE ‘A’ Level, most of the students in Hapugasyaya tend to drop out of school before completing their GCE ‘O’ Level.
These unfortunates caught up in a nightmare of poverty are condemned to be forever ‘hewers of wood and
drawers of water’.
What does the future hold for them?
Little grains of sand... two little boys attempting to help make ends meet
All children have their dreams, two little girls pensively stare into the future
A family of slightly better means
Their dire poverty subjects them to discrimination...
Children represent a nation’s future... but these children’s future looks bleak
He should be studying, but now works, so his younger siblings may eat