Thanks for your response. I just tried to clarify certain inaccuracies in the writings of the Ambassador and Prof Hoole.

You are trying to confuse theory and practice of standardization. We have no problem with standardization as a scientific tool.But unfortunately it was used as a weapon of oppression.-to subjugate a people.

My grievances on this entire problem as pointed out repeatedly by so many is that the majority is still not prepared to consider that Tamils have equal rights .This is what is popularly known as majoritarian agenda.The moment the Sinhalease sincerely consider the Tamils and Muslims as citizens of this country and not speak about 12% and 2/3 of coastal areas and other nonsense as if the rights are somehow related to percentages, all the problems related to races vanish.

For that to happen you need a paradigm shift

“…..It is true that the Z score of Jaffna, Batticaloa, Vavunia, Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu is very much lower than those of the Sinhala Majority Districts. But what is the ground situation in those Tamil Majority Districts?
Is there a conducive atmosphere for educational activities? -with aerial bombings, shelling, economic embargo and all types of economic deprivations. Does the environment favors education?

I am not defending the Govt. for the unconducive situation in Jaffna, Killinochi and Mullaitivu. I personally think the Govt should hand over these areas to the LTTE and get the hell out.

However my point is, if not for the District based standardisation system Tamils will not be compensated for the less than ideal situation in these districts and be expected to do as well as the students in the South. District based standardisation was a means of creating a level playing field so that students from districts with poor educational infrastructure could compete with those from Colombo and Jaffna which then had the best schools in the country.

It is a system of admission used in many countries with uneven educational infrastructure. Australia favours students from the outback over those from cities. The UK drops the standards for students from Comprehensive schools over those from Public schools and the US has affirmative action for Blacks and Native Americans. However only Sri Lanka gets pilloried for it. And thats the world we live in, Sri.

Can there be “ordinary” people in extra-ordinary and tragic times who just go about untouched and unmoved by the events of the times? If so then such “ordinary” people must surely be bloodless automatons or mindless ’sheep’ (with apologies to real sheep and robots).

This kind of “ordinary” Tamil (or for that matter “ordinary” Sinhalese) should be alerted to the poem:

“First they came for the ….. , and I did not speak out –
because I was only an Ordinary Tamil/Sinhalese….

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me. “

Sri, See my previous post if you want to see the real situation wrt to standardisation. Tamils from Jaffna need far fewer marks for University entry than Sinhalese from Colombo, Galle and Matara. If anybody its the Sinhalese who are discriminated and should be complaining. Infact those who are favoured most by district based standardisation are Tamil students from Batticaloa, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Kilinochi districts. Tamils from Jaffna faced no more discrimination than Sinhalese from Colombo. Tamils from the East, Vanni and Plantations have always benifited from district based standardisation.

Do you know what the background was for Standardisation on ethnic basis in 1971? It was found that Tamils who make up 12% of the population made up some 78% of all undergraduates in the Medicine and Engirneering faculties. Some politicians felt that students writing for their exams in Tamil were being marked up by Tamil examiners because when the sole medium was English this figure was only 40%. I dont know if there was any truth to this allegation but it would certainly cause problems even here in England if they suddenly found that Pakistani Moslems suddenly made up 78% of Oxford and Cambridge. Standardisation based on ethnicity was an ill advised “fix” to try and redress this imbalance. What they should have done was to have reverted to English, but that was not possible due to Sinhala Nationalists.

You,as a person personally affected by the standardization, your first person narratives would have convinced any doubting thomases because this standardization started all these conflicts.If I remember correctly, there were three stages in the selection of university admissions in the 70s.
Stage 1 1970/1971Pure racial basis:-A Tamil drivers son from Royal College should
score more marks than a doctor’s son to the engineering faculty from the same
Royal College This has no any scientific basis.
Stage 2 1971/1977 Media wise standardization.
Stage 3 1977 to date District wise standardization.
What is common in all the three methods is the same to reduce Tamil intake. The objective was achieved 100%.
Now a stage has reached when the same result could be obtained without any standardization, but even under a merit basis.

But the bitterness is there!.

The desire to take revenge is there because the discriminated lot was helpless and they respond by the only way possible,the result is …………..

Any kind of military solution will result in this same output!

Court cases: In those days there were not as many cases as there should have been because i.Tamils’ cases had been dragged on for too long and ii.the government was providing immunity to the armed forces, the alleged perpetrators, in many cases. These days there are additional reasons of intimidation, abduction and murder of i. those victims who wish to file cases and ii those lawyers who wish to argue the cases.

The mound over the grave of democracy has been only growing over the last sixty years…….

I think the only way out of this mess is first have a federal set up and have an interim Government and then a referendum in NE only to see whether they want to continue as one country or part as seperate country.

LTTE will never be wiped out and the killing will never go away unless the “SUPER DOCTORS started treating the cause and not the symptom”

We have identified the cause and people who are PAID EMPLOYEEs like the ambassador and Dayan are refusing to label the disease and only want to treat the symptom… How long we they can pretend to be sleeping???

As for the others, SLFP propose the district council and upgraded the provincial council only because LTTE is still holding some real estate. Once (if )that is gone we will get municipal council from the Sinhalas.

They (sinhalas) love democrasy because it gives them absolute majority and for the Tamils we are always minority.