By P.K.Balachandran

The two-month long impasse over the admission of AIDS suspect Rehan Dilshara to a school in Sri Lanka has ended with Trinity College, a leading Christian missionary school in Kandy, agreeing to take him and meet his expenses.

A Memorandum of Understanding to admit the six-year old from an indigent family, was signed on Wednesday by Andrew Fowler-Watt, Principal of the 159 year-old Anglican mission school, and Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, Lankan Minister of Education.

Prior to this, every school in the Kuliyapitya area of Lanka’s North Western Province, including government-run institutions, had refused to take the kid on the basis of a rumor that he has AIDS, or his mother, Chandani, has AIDS, or his father had died of AIDS. All this despite government doctors’ certificates to the contrary.

Minister Kariyawasam himself fueled the rumor by saying that the mother is HIV Positive and that she can transmit the virus to her son by simply lying beside him. He also said that he could not force schools to take the boy.

But widespread media coverage resulted in President Maithripala Sirisena’s assuring admission. While no government run or Buddhist-run school offered to admit the boy, the Christian Trinity College of Kandy, and the Muslim Zahira College of Kurunegala, offered to take him.

Courtesy:New Indian Express