The Education Ministry has told heads of Government schools countrywide not to organise unsafe field trips, educational tours and pilgrimages for students and teachers as 168 children and youngsters have died of drowning while bathing and swimming in rivers, village tanks and other deep waterways during the past eighteen months.
Kurunegala District Senior Director of Education, W.M. Balasooriya said the irresponsible behaviour of students and teachers has led to this tragic trend. School heads are answerable if they grant permission for teachers and students to go on such trips in an irresponsible manner. Some senior students who had gone swimming and bathed in rivers under the influence of liquor had drowned and nearly 18 such cases were reported last year.
He was speaking at a meeting of heads of Government schools in the Kurunegala and Puttalam Districts of the North Western Province.
He said around six school teachers and two school heads had to be interdicted since they were found guilty of organising and accompanying the students on such risky and fatal trips.
“Almost 56 deaths had occurred this year due to drowning and of those victims, 14 were reported to be schoolchildren. Parents, school heads and teachers have to be alert as children may become victims of drowning due to their carelessness and negligence,” he said.