Don't send students to dhamma school - Upul Shantha

Don't send children to daham school on Sunday ...
and spoil them
- Upul Shantha Sannasgala

    Conducting tuition classes on Sunday and depriving children of attending daham pasel is a debatable discussion which has been going on for some time.

   Upul Shantha Sannasgala, well-known tuition master who speaks on the subject to Mawbima says that what happens by sending children to daham pasela is a detrimental act. He says that many of the incidents of child abuse in Sri Lanka takes place not in schools or tuition classes .... but in religious places and that if a child is sent to a daham school, even a child with terrorist inclinations can be reformed. Following is what he said in the above context:
   *First of all. give us a straightforward answer ..... are daham pasel required or no?
     It is a relative idea. There may be some people who think that when a child is sent to a daham pasel, that child could be brought up well ... that the child's future could be moulded well ... that values in the child could be developed and so there is a section of the public who think that for this purpose a child should be sent to a daham pasel. Specially in a Buddhist country such as ours, there may be a majority who think on these lines. But there is a public who don't think so. In this case when I say daham pasel, it's not only with a sense of Buddhism ... in a way that is common to all religions. One may think that if the child attends the daham pasel that child will be destroyed. I'll give an example ... there are some religious places in Sri Lanka .... underground locations. In the same way ... it if a child is sent to a daham pasela, a child can be brought up like an L.T.T.E. terrorist.

  *You are now talking in a biased manner. Isn't that an injustice you do to the majority you spoke of earlier?
   No ... what if we ask like this ... have child abuse and child corruption taken place mostly in schools or in tuition classes? Not in any of these. My answer is, in religious places. This is not just babbling. If you look into the reports of the legal system, complaints at the police and surveys done by the Child Protection Authority, these will be confirmed. As such, a religious place can be identified as a place which provides opportunity for misbehaviour in the present era in this country more than the tuition class, school, police or army camp.

  As such, the point whether a child should go to the daham school or not is something that is left to the intelligence of the parents and not a compulsion of religion. If any parent thinks that his or her child should attend the daham school, it's a democratic right. Not sending to daham school too is a democratic right.
Source of narration -- Shalika Wimalasena