The Head Master of S. Thomas’ Preparatory School, Kollupitiya, Mr. N.Y. Casie Chetty, in his recent Prize Day Report stressed the need for education "to play a far more crucial and pivotal role in the healing of the nation after a prolonged period of fratricidal strife.’’

"It is we who are the guardians of our children, who are the flower of our nation, and the responsibility for ensuring that the flower blooms to its optimum potential depends to a significant degree on the input and values provided by us,’’ he said.

He pointed out that in the past several years, he in his Prize Day addresses, had sought to draw attention to the place of education in the context of the civil strife and violent blood letting that Sri Lanka had experienced.

Last year he had said: "At a time such as this, when there are deep divisions and major fissures in the social fabric of our nation, it appears almost meaningless and irrelevant to focus our attention on issues such as education.

"Though education ought to be front and centre in any serious debate, discussion or consideration of vital issues facing our nation, it is indeed a sad spectacle to find that education has instead been relegated to the back-burner, with cursory attention being paid to it."

Casie Chetty said that he was happy to be able to strike a more optimistic note this year with the civil conflict that had ravaged the North and East of the country for more than a quarter century being recently concluded.

"Much of the nation’s vital resources had been steadily and systematically eroded, much needed foreign investment was not readily forthcoming given the political instability in the context of the civil strife and the state’s financial resources had necessarily to be channeled towards the needs of the defence of our country. As a consequence, the education sector, as did many other areas, suffer due to the lack of finances," he said.