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It is an open secret and a bitter truth that most of the parents who
seek admission to their children to Grade One send applications to more
than four to five schools in the city. This must be stopped.
The Department of Education should stipulate that a parent can send
only one application with four choices. This may ease the big burden on
school authorities to hold interviews and select children for Grade One.
Just think of an area, where there are ten thousand children who seek
admission to Grade One, and if there are five schools in the town or
city.
They all get well over five to six thousand applications each,
altogether about twenty to thirty thousand. As the parents apply to
every school in the township making room for all types of corruptions
and misappropriations. So this should be stopped for once and forever.
Furthermore all the schools in the country should have Grade One
admission interviews on a single day from 7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. without
leaving room for culprits to creep through the loopholes.
I suggest to the Minister of Education to the possibility of applying
only one application to a school with four or five choices and see the
difference.
D. M. P. B. DISSANAYAKE Kegalle
In my opinion a bowler should not need to know English, because his
responsibility is to bowl well, not to show that he can speak in
English. Someone can translate what he says into Sinhala as Mahela did
that at One Day International.
Even when international pageants are held, the contestants speak
their mother language, if he or she doesn’t know English and there is a
translator.
But only in Sri Lanka, people think that when you go out into the
world, you need to speak English, it is a must and you have to speak
better English, otherwise people will laugh at you.
If we know and if we can speak in English, it will help us to be on
par with the modern world, but if you cannot speak in English, it cannot
be a disgrace or a shame, because it is our second language.
Before knowing English, you should know your mother tongue, Sinhala.
PRANEETHA PERERA Moratuwa
There has been a spate of articles in the newspapers about crocodile
attacks on those who use the Nilwala ganga especially for bathing.
Whilst condoling the loss of lives, we must also not forget that
humans form part of the food chain.
Most people seem to forget this when living in cities.
The crocodile like most animals of prey is highly territorial and
does not take kindly to people or animals encroaching into its
territory.
From the crocodile’s point of view it was only defending its
territory, or was probably on the look out for lunch. We must also not
forget that the crocodile, a descendant of the dinosaur, since ancient
times, has been the Municipal Council of the waterways.
It kept the waterways clean by devouring dead and rotting carcasses
of both animals and humans. The ancient Egyptians considered the
crocodile to be one of their gods.
Recently whilst watching the Discovery Channel, I came across a
similar instance of alligator-human conflict in America where two fish
and wildlife agents armed only with fishing rods by means of strong
nylon filament line and a triple hook with a lead weight, were able to
foul hook a rouge alligator’s tough hide, tire it and reel it to shore
for capture and subsequent re-location.
Like Steve Irvin in his Crocodile adventures, the agents after
pulling the alligator to shore, stepped on its nose and then quickly
taped the deadly jaws to immobilise it.
M.D. (TONY) SALDIN Wattala
I wish to mention that devils do not haunt the cemeteries, but we
find living devils prowling the roads and streets of our land.
These sadistic inhuman vultures definitely need punishment such as
public canning or face the death penalty.
We commonly hear and read about rape which is at an alarming
increase. The newspaper headlines we daily read are as follows.
Neighbour allegedly rapes widow, grandfather allegedly rapes
granddaughter, father rapes daughter, uncle rapes his niece, Trishaw
driver rapes schoolgirl, tutor rapes student etc.
This has become a very common inhuman act, which goes unnoticed due
to our stupidness and sheer ignorance of the leniency prevailed of the
law in our land.
The victims mostly are murdered and thrown or ditched to the jungles,
streams, rivers or beside the road. The death sentence was halted in
1977 and it has been 31 years since then the crime rate has reached
zenith point.
The human rights organisations make a big hue and cry when the death
sentence was in force, what have they to say about the loss of lives and
the trauma the victims and their kith and kin have to face and undergo.
It is high time that the President enforces the death penalty, as too
many innocent lives are lost daily due to these inhuman devils.
I would like to conclude by mentioning let us not mix religion,
politics and the law of our land, as no religion permits these inhuman
acts taking place except in the forest or the jungles where human
habitat is not in presence.
Li Kuang SHU - Kandy
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