Integrating Students To Help Reconciliation

by Easwaran Rutnam

Former President Chandrika Banadaranaike Kumaratunga has proposed integrating students from different backgrounds in each school in the country.

She has proposed the need to have students of the different communities in the country to be enrolled into schools where there is a majority of a particular community, be it Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim.

So in other words a government school with mostly Sinhalese students should enroll Tamil and Muslim students while a school with mostly Tamil or Muslim students should enroll Sinhalese students.

This will help Sinhalese students understand the minorities better and will also help the minorities unite with the Sinhalese.

It is the children who will set the path of how our future generations will live and this kind of proposal where efforts are taken to bridge the gap between the children of different communities will help ensure a more united Sri Lanka in the years ahead.

Kumaratunga is the chairperson of the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR) which is fully involved in the National reconciliation process.

ONUR together with Ministry of Education and Provincial Education Ministries had recently initiated a programme to ensure the main religious festivals are celebrated in all schools.

The initial stage of the programme titled  A United Sri Lanka: Blessed with Diversity was successfully completed recently.

The programme was launched to coincide with the Thai Pongal festival and within a period of two weeks some 35 different programmes were staged with the participation of over 15,000 students, teachers and parents at several schools.

The programmes helped the students of different faiths learn more about the Tamil Thai Pongal festival and also celebrate it with their Tamil friends. Speaking at an event last week, President Maithripala Sirisena also highlighted the need for there to be unity among all communities.

“To move forward as a developed nation in the world, all Sri Lankans should join hands in peace and brotherhood.

Whatever race and religion we belong to, we should face the world as one Sri Lankan nation,” he said. The President further stated that the policy of the new government is to develop the schools in villages, similar to the schools in towns.

The President said that the aim of his government is to provide equal education opportunities for all the children in the country and to build a society where everyone can live in harmony.

ONUR is responsible for formulation and coordinating the implementation of the policies and programmes to build national unity and reconciliation.  ONUR says its principle role is to ensure a durable peace through building bridges between everyone.

The Board of Governors of the ONUR consist of eminent persons who have excelled in their professional lives and representatives of multiple religious, ethnic, professional and academic backgrounds.

The staff of ONUR also represents diverse backgrounds and professional experience.

ONUR has completed a mapping process, which identified relevant LLRC recommendations that fall within the mandate of ONUR. Some of the recent developments with ONUR intervention in this regard include initiatives in the areas of language, education, political dialogue for reconciliation, setting up of a grievance unit and empowering women, issuance of ‘Certificates of Absence’ for families of missing persons and facilitating comprehensive development planning.

Identifying the fact that education is an extremely important sector for supporting a transformative process in post-conflict societies and in creating the mindset of the younger generation to encourage social cohesion, reconciliation and fostering unity; ONUR with Ministry of Education and the relevant Provincial Ministries of Education, have jointly identified a range of short, medium and long term initiatives that will facilitate creating awareness among the young generation on the importance moving forward as Sri Lankans with national unity and reconciliation.

Some of the identified existing initiatives will be scaled up for better efficiency and effectiveness including student/teacher exchange programmes and the promotion of arts, culture and sports for reconciliation.

Discussion is underway to design a road map for mainstreaming national unity and reconciliation within the education system. Some significant milestones suggested in this process consist of reviving Citizenship Governance and Peace Education and practice in schools and the promotion of the Trilingual Language Policy.