News
Faith-based barriers in schools endure
View(s):The clause in the Act of 1960 and 1961 in the government takeover of assisted schools in the early 1960s is causing serious problems to grade 5 scholarship students when choosing a school, a spokesman of the Ceylon Teachers Union, said.
Last week a grade 5 scholarship student from the Nawala Janadhipathi Primary School who opted to study at a school in Colombo faced several obstacles as he could not prove that he had a Buddhist background, he said.
It transpires although he had cut off marks of 179 he was denied admission because he was not a Buddhist. The parents who were Sinhala and Tamil had to go through several procedures to prove that he in fact had a Buddhist education in his primary classes, he claimed.
He was refused because the birth certificate said that the child’s father was a Tamil. Later on contesting the issue, the parents were called on to prove through an affidavit that the child has a Buddhist background and has knowledge of Buddhism.
Eventually the child was admitted to school from last week.
This is not the first time a child was being refused admission to a school on the basis of religion.
Denying children admission to assisted schools because of their religious background has been in practice since 1960 when the government took over the private schools run by missionaries and nuns, under its wings.
The Education Act No. 5 of 1960 stipulates that the government will not admit a student to these schools when the parents ‘do not profess the religion of such proprietor unless prior permission is obtained from the director’.
The practice still continues and schools that had emerged under different religious origins continue to cater to different religions. Not only the Buddhist schools, the Christian and Muslim schools deny admission based on religion.