Education Ministry To Draw Up Guideline To Prevent HIV And Other Discriminations At Schools

March 2, 2016 

The Ministry of Education is looking at introducing a guideline in an effort to prevent students from been discriminated, following the recent incident where a six year old boy was refused admission to the Sambodi Primary School in Kuliyapitiya as he was suspected to be HIV positive.

Education Minister – Akila Viraj Kariyawasam

According to the Secretary to the Ministry of Education W. M. Bandusena at present there is no guideline issued by the authorities to deal with such issues, hence the ministry is looking at developing a guideline to deal with similar situations in the future.

However, after authorities intervened and the child was granted admission, on February 29, parents of some 179 students studying in the school removed their children from the school in protest for granting admission to the six year old child.

The child’s mother, Chandani Soysa said that there had been rumours saying that her husband died from HIV/AIDS, and hence the child had also contracted it. She however denied the rumours and said her husband died from a kidney failure.          Read More