All educational institutes should act as reconciliation centers: President

All educational institutes, including universities and vocational training centers should act as reconciliation centers, and reconciliation should be included in the school curriculum as a subject, President Maithripala Sirisena said.

Referring to the incident that occurred last week at the University of Jaffna, the President expressed his deep concern, stating that all educational institutes should be reformed to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

He made these remarks during a ceremony to declare open the newly built Sri Lanka-German Technical Training Institute in Kilinochchi on Monday. The Institute was built with the financial assistance of Germany.

Sirisena recalled that on January 08, 2015, the people of this country elected him as President based on his policy statement presented in his election manifesto and that he will fulfill all the promises he had made without any hesitation.

The President also said that the Sinhala Buddhist community in this country will be able to live happily only after solving the issues pertaining to  other communities in the country and the first step in this regard is to acknowledge the people in the North has a problem to solve. The President requested the “media heroes” who hold media conferences in the South to visit the North and East to listen and understand the problems of the people living there.

“With the introduction of a new constitution, we are trying to build one country by uniting divided communities, not to divide the country,” he said.

The President expressed his warm wishes to German Aambassador Jürgen Morhard who is expected to depart Sri Lanka following the end of his tenure. He also expressed his special thanks to the ambassador for his contribution in utilizing German assistance to Sri Lanka more productively including the construction of this vocational training center .

President Sirisena planted a Kohomba sapling to mark the occasion at the premises, followed by an inspection tour of the institute.

Diplomats, Ministers and MPs, including opposition Leader R. Sambandan, Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, North Provincial Governor Reginald Cooray, German Ambassador Jürgen Morhard and many others took part in the event.