I watch Sirasa News every evening, stomaching bad Sinhala, because of the segment Vimarshana. On January 23, they aired a story about a boy who was not admitted to Revata Kanishtha Vidyalyaya, Balapitiya as he had scored 36 marks against the cut off point of 40 marks. To say that I was shocked is a gross understatement.

This boy of five years from a family in which there was no father, where the mother was disabled and who was brought up mostly by his grandmother, all of whom barely managed to survive in poverty was almost a miracle. Recall he is five years old and seeking admission to Grade I. He recited with perfect diction a part of a stanza ‘ mata pitu upatthanang, putta darassa sangaho…’ and explained quite succinctly what it meant in Sinhala. He went on to give a short explanation on ‘pubbacariyo’, which matched well with what Walpola Rahula had written in dedicating his Ph.D. thesis. He read continuous prose far more fluently than most politicians read their oath of office. He read the letters of the English alphabet flawlessly. He is a playful and buoyant little bundle of joy to any parent or teacher. Yet this five year old from a poor home was denied admission to Grade I in Revata Kanishtha Vidyalaya, Balapitiya! To put it mildly, this is an extraordinarily gifted child who needs extra care to enable him achieve his best self.

His disabled mother mused that he may not have been admitted because the mother eked out a living making coir yarn (euphemism, svayang rakiya) and was not in the employ of anybody. Most likely Revata Vidyalyaya was the closest to the boy’s residence. With her income, this mother is unlikely to be able to pay for the van hire to send the child to a school at a further distance. What are they to do? Let another loud-mouthed gangster emerge to terrorise a whole society?

I apologise that I publicly identify myself with children like that. But that is precisely where I was before I was admitted to Katudampe Government Mixed School in 1940 and elsewhere later. I cannot but protest against the grotesque nature of any regulation, that denies a boy so gifted admission to a school nearest his home. That, indeed, is the very definition of injustice.