However the majority of Sri Lankan populace lived outside urban areas and did not belong to the social elite, and therefore did not enjoy the benefits of English-medium education.
The issue was compounded further by the fact that in Jaffna, where a largely Tamil populace resided,[5] students had access to English-medium education through American missionary schools.
In addition, many Tamils sought jobs in government service and the medical and engineering professions due to the lack of opportunities in the densely populated dry zone of Jaffna, where crop yields were low.
[2] As a result Tamil parents pressurised their children to master English, Mathematics and Science as a means to secure good employment, and to avoid a life of unemployment and hard labour.
[2] This created a situation where a large proportion of students enrolled in universities throughout the country were English-speaking Tamils and Sinhalese from urban centers like Colombo,[5] particularly in professional courses such as medicine and engineering.
Despite only a measly 6.67% of the Indian Tamil population having secondary schooling, the government adopted no measures to create special ethnic quotas for them.
[2] In 1971 the Sinhalese-led government introduced a system of standardisation of marks for admissions to the universities which was directed against Tamil-medium students.
Worse still, this same pattern of a lower qualifying mark applied even when Sinhalese and Tamil students sat for the examination in English.
"Therefore, the government policy of standardisation was in essence a discriminatory regulation to curtail the number of Tamil students selected for certain faculties in the universities.
[7] Sri Lankan Tamil academic Ratnajeevan Hoole recounted the following in a letter to The Washington Times:[8] "I took the common Advanced Level exam in 1969 and was admitted to the engineering faculty.
de Silva wrote:[3] "By 1977 the issue of university admissions had become a focal point of the conflict between the government and Tamil leaders.
One-man one-vote led to the domination of the Sinhalese majority over the minority Tamils who were the active and intelligent fellows who worked hard and got themselves penalised.