COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
21.40 On 17 January 2011 the official website of the Government of Sri Lanka 429 reported
that:
―Major General Shavendra Silva, Acting Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the
United Nations speaking on the advancement of Girl Child Education in Sri Lanka at the
UN said, the Government took concerted action to rehabilitate and reintegrate all former
child combatants.
―‗Among them, 351 were girls. Knowing that these children had been forced to take up
arms instead of school books, the Government of Sri Lanka adopted a dynamic
approach towards their reintegration‘.
―Such an approach was based on the principles of women empowerment, livelihood
training, psycho-social support, and above all, restorative justice, he said.
―For those who missed the opportunity of experiencing a childhood and a formal
education, arrangements have been made through the ‗catch up schools‘ to enable
them to complete the General Certificate of Education examinations, irrespective of their
current age.‖
―To assist the former LTTE combatants, including women, a vocational, technical and
language training opportunities are offered under the ‗Accelerated Skills Acquisition
Programme‘. The ‗Nanasala‘, or the centres of wisdom, is another such programme
launched in the conflict affected areas to provide community [sic] based education to
the youth of whom majority are females.‖
21.41 The State of the World‘s Children 2011 430 reported that the ―Youth (15–24 years)
literacy rate 2004–2008‖ (defined as ―Number of literate persons aged 15–24,
expressed as a percentage of the total population in that age group‖) was respectively
97 per cent for males and 99 per cent for females.
21.42 The Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics recorded in their Statistical Abstract
2010, Education, Number of schools, pupils, teachers and pupil teacher ratios by type of
school, 2002 - 2009 431 (undated, website accessed on 1 June 2011) that in 2009 there
were 10,205 Government schools; 98 private schools and 697 Pirivenas [Buddhist
monastic colleges] with a total number of pupils of 4,033,248. In Government schools
the Pupil Teacher Ratio was 18.
429
Official website of the Government of Sri Lanka, Dynamic approach to reintegrate ex-LTTE child
cadres
- Maj Gen Shavendra Silva at UN, 17 January 2011
http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca201101/20110117dynamic_approach.htm date
accessed 1 June 2011
430
UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children 2011: Adolescence – An Age of Opportunity
http://www.unicef.org/sowc2011/pdfs/SOWC-2011-Main-Report_EN_02092011.pdf date accessed 31
May 2011, Table 5
431
Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics, Statistical Abstract 2010, Education Number of
schools, pupils, teachers and pupil teacher ratios by type of school, 2002 – 2009, undated
http://www.statistics.gov.lk/abstract2010/chapters/Chap14/AB14-3.pdf date accessed 1 June 2011
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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