{"id":88707,"date":"2019-05-13T16:26:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T23:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=88707"},"modified":"2019-05-13T16:26:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T23:26:44","slug":"tabs-to-school-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/13\/tabs-to-school-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Tabs to school children"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Laksiri Warnakula<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>A 21<sup>st<\/sup>&nbsp;century St Nicholas from the East<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have read in one of our newspapers (DailyMirror,\n10-05-19) that the approval has been given by the cabinet to Minister Akila\nViraj Kariyawasam\u2019s \u2018Tab project\u2019. And it is a whopping 3.5 billion rupee\nproject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, we have thousands and thousands of schools that lack\nbasic amenities and facilities. Children are sitting on rickety chairs or even\nbare ground under roofs that leak when it rains, let too much sun when it\nshines and that could also come down on their heads, at any time with hardly\nany advance notice. The standards of sanitation and hygiene maintained at these\nschools hardly need any description or elaboration. And a good proportion of\nthose children is suffering from malnutrition. We all know about this and so do\nthe Mr Minister and his learned cabinet too, I am sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The quality of the teaching profession is not something\nthat we can be proud of, anymore. Many, who are engaged in this noble\nprofession have now become mere businessmen preferring money-making by giving\ntuition to enriching and improving the mental prowess of our children.\nSincerity of purpose meant to be in one of the noblest professions on earth has\nsomehow lost its way, here in Sri Lanka.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Isn\u2019t this a colossal waste of money, anyway? And here we\nhave someone, who seems to be trying to become the 21<sup>st&nbsp;<\/sup>century\u2019s St Nicholas from the East, with his plan to spend\nthis vast amount that could have gone into much more worthwhile projects in the\nfield of education, teaching and also addressing the immediate needs of the\nschool children, from rural and remote areas, in particular. To be fair, our\nteachers themselves have their own grievances too that need to be resolved. So\nall in all, we have so many more important and urgent things here crying for\nattention and one is driven to wonder what made this \u2018tab project\u2019 take\npriority over such issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the way, I\nwonder whether there will be a small sticker or a stamp on the back of each of\nthose tabs to say \u2018a gift from Akila\u2019! However, St Nicholas, on the other hand,\nwas using his own money and didn\u2019t want his identity revealed. Just showing\nwhere the comparison ends, no sooner than it starts, perhaps quite regrettably\nfrom Mr AVKs\u2019 point of view!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Laksiri Warnakula<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laksiri Warnakula A 21st&nbsp;century St Nicholas from the East I have read in one of our newspapers (DailyMirror, 10-05-19) that the approval has been given by the cabinet to Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam\u2019s \u2018Tab project\u2019. And it is a whopping 3.5 billion rupee project. Now, we have thousands and thousands of schools that lack basic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}