President awards ‘Hapan’ Schols

Rasika Somarathna

The ‘Hapan’ Educational Scholarships, sponsored by the National Savings Bank (NSB) were awarded to Students who excelled at the year 05 Scholarship exam in 2009 at a ceremony held under the patronage of President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees yesterday.

Students who obtained the highest ranking in their respective districts received their scholarships from President Rajapaksa.

Most notably, the majority of the scholarship winners came from the rural areas with the number one performer hailing from the deep south hamlet of Beliatta, number two from Kurunegala and the third from the formerly conflict affected Vadukkodai, Jaffna. Several students from the formerly war ravaged North such as Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Jaffna, Mannar and Vavuniya were in the top performers category.

The fact was pointed out by Education Minister Bandula Gunawardene as ample testimony to the success of the Government efforts to propagate quality education facilities in the remote areas on par with the ones available in city schools.

Addressing the gathering Minister Gunawardene noted that the Government efforts to achieve equality in education had paid rich dividends and students gathered at temple trees yesterday was ample testimony to the fact.

He said that today students from former conflict areas such as Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Jaffna could come to Colombo without fear and obtain scholarships from the President’s hand at temple trees and reminded the gathering that this was not a possibility some time back.

He said that the gun culture which plagued the nation was no more and the present focus was to create a knowledge based society to supplement development under the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ concept.