E/C.12/LKA/CO/5
60.
The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its measures to
ensure that mental health care is available, accessible, timely and adequate, including
through increasing funding, ensuring that there is a sufficient number of trained
mental health professionals, decentralizing care provision, addressing regional
disparities in service provision, improving referral systems and ensuring social
protection for families and patients. It recommends that the State party ensure the
provision of systematic programmes for promotion of mental health and psychosocial
well-being at the community level. The Committee also recommends that the State
party urgently adopt the mental health policy under development by the Ministry of
Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine.
61.
The Committee is concerned about the high use of agrochemicals in the State party,
seriously affecting the health of farming communities. It also notes with concern that while
glyphosate pesticide was officially banned in 2015 in the State party, it is still used in
plantations (art. 12).
62.
The Committee recommends that the State party urgently address the very
high use of agrochemicals, take steps to enforce the ban of glyphosate in all sectors,
extend the ban to cover all agrochemicals that adversely affect the health of the
population and the environment and carry out effective and frequent inspections.
Education
63.
The Committee is concerned that, despite concerted efforts made, regional
disparities remain in school infrastructure, availability of water and electricity in
educational institutions, deployment of trained educational personnel, curriculum contents
and transport of pupils. These disparities lead to differences in access to and quality of
education. The Committee is also concerned about the hidden financial costs of schooling,
in particular donations for school admittance that constitute de facto bribes burdening lowincome and underprivileged households with additional costs. It is furthermore concerned
at the commodification of education (art. 13).
64.
The Committee recommends that the State party take urgent steps to address
regional disparities in education, improve educational standards, technical and
infrastructural facilities, as well as the availability of qualified teachers (including
Tamil-speaking teachers), in particular in conflict-affected areas. It urges the State
party to significantly increase its public spending on education and establish the
envisaged education inspectorate. The Committee also urges the State party to
address the hidden financial costs of the public education system, ensuring its
affordability and eliminating the practice of donations for school admittance.
65.
The Committee is concerned that many children with disabilities still do not receive
primary, secondary and university education (enrolment rates are 34.6 per cent, 33.8 per
cent and 1.3 per cent, respectively) and that persons with disabilities in higher education
face difficulties in accessing facilities and information and that their choice of subjects is
limited (art. 13).
66.
The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its efforts to ensure
that all children with disabilities have access to and receive quality inclusive
education.
Cultural rights
67.
The Committee is concerned that the Official Languages Law and the National
Trilingual Policy are not effectively enforced and that State offices and government
departments do not have adequate capacity to communicate with Tamil-speaking citizens in
their native language and thus to provide fair and equal access to State services. It is also
concerned that less than 1 per cent of schools offer teaching in all three languages and that
there is a shortage of Tamil-language teachers, especially in the hill country (art. 15).
68.
The Committee recommends that the State party take immediate steps to
ensure effective implementation of the Official Languages Law and National
Trilingual Policy, through a sufficient number of Tamil-speaking public officials and
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