අධ්‍යාපන ඇමති වරයෙක් ගැන තව කතාවක්.........

අධ්‍යාපන ඇමති වරයෙක් ගැන තව කතාවක්......... 

මෙය වසර කිහිපයකට  පෙර මගේ මිතුරෙකු විසින් එවන ලද ඊ-මේල් එකකි. ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන් තිබුණු එය ඒ ලෙසටම පළ කිරීම සුදුසුයයි සිතුනා. ඒ පැරණි සිද්ධිය මෑතදී සිදුවූ අවාසනාවන්ත සිද්ධියක් සමග හොඳට ගලපා තිබෙනවා. එම සිද්ධිය මට ලැබුණු ලෙසටම මෙහි  පළ කරනවා.

This article is with reference to the incident where a provincial councilor of the Northwestern province forced a teacher at Nawagattegama Navodya School to kneel down and scolded her with filth because she had advised his daughter to wear the uniform properly 

I wished to write this article as I was reminded of an incident, which occurred in 1979 where the Education Minister during that period, Dr.Nissanka Wijeratne praised and promoted a teacher who punished his son. He was the only  Minister in relation to the education of the entire country at that time.His actions displayed the charisma and personality of an educated politician.

This article contains a short report on the particular incident.

When the incident occurred I was serving as a clerk at the Kandy branch of the Education Department. My roommate then, A.C Perera, was the teacher in charge of grade 8 at Kingswood College, Kandy.

One day he arrived at the apartment stating ‘ Dharme, today I punished the students who had not completed their home work and the son of the Education Minister, Mano Wijeratne was also among them. I did not make any exceptions for him just because he is the son of Education Minister. I might get transferred or suspended. Try to save me somehow. if I get transferred make it into a near by school.’

We talked about the particular incident on that night and next morning and reported for duty as usual. When Perera returned  in the evening he said’ Machan, the minister has requested me to visit him tomorrow. What should I do? ‘

In response I assured him that I would do whatever is possible to support him if any issue occurred.The other day to my utter amazement, Perera returned form minister’s office with a huge smile on his face and said” can you people get a letter like this”. The letter contained appreciation and admiration of the minister, encouraging him to punish his son on future occasions as well if he misbehaved.

  

When handing over the letter to Perera, Minister Nissanka Wijeratne has also stated “ if you apply for any promotion, send a message through my son after submitting the application. Accordingly, he was promoted to the post of lecturer at a Technical College.

This is how the educated and humane politician acted in the past. Thereafter, Mano Wijeratne also became a parliamentarian and a minister. Today the said education minister, his son or the said teacher are not alive. The occurrences such as Nawagattegama incident reveal how the prevailing political system has lead to the destruction of the society. I wish the actions of former minister Nissanka Wijertane will be exemplary for contemporary politicians.

-Lankadeepa ( E.S Dharmasena, Former Assistant Commissioner of Labour )