Attempts are underway to reopen a Sinhalese school in Jaffna which is currently being used as part of a Sri Lankan Army camp.
Old students and teachers of the Jaffna Sinhala Mahavidyalaya are due to meet to discuss efforts to reopen the school which was closed in 1985 when the Sri Lankan Army displaced residents of the Jaffna district. From then the school building came under Sri Lankan Army occupation.
The school was originally built in 1965.
A similar school in Kilinochchi, the Kilinochchi Sinhala Mahavidyalaya, stayed open throughout the 90s and early 2000s within the LTTE de-facto state of Tamil Eelam, with a Buddhist monk as its principal, closing only as a result of the escalated violence during the last few years of the war.