And then imagine, in the middle of this chaos and trauma, bright faced boys and girls dressed in, maybe old, but always clean uniforms, setting out every morning to school unerringly.

It may sound surreal, but in north-eastern Sri Lanka, where a war has been raging for years and years, school is the only certainty, the pole star around which an entire community of Tamils seeks to order its fractured existence.

This month, over 2,000 children -- many of them refugees from other parts of the north-east -- living in the Vanni mainland, Sri Lanka's main war theatre, have tucked thoughts of war into a corner of their minds to concentrate on the all important A level (A/L) exams.

Last month, even while the LTTE andthe army stood deadlocked over a passage for food convoys, the only concession made by both sides was for a safe passage for civilians seeking medical help to leave LTTE territory and for the A/L examination papers to be delivered to the schools there.

``It's absolutely amazing. In no other part of the world does this happen, that there is a national exam going on in an area so completely affected by conflict,'' said Bo Schak, senior protection officer of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

A few months ago, a military offensive in Oddusudan near Mullaithivu forced people to flee the area. About 12,000 people took refuge in schools as a result of which it seemed that hundreds of children might not be able to take the O level (O/L)exams that were about to begin then. When the refugees realised this, they moved out to other buildings so that the examination would not be disrupted.

Education continues in the north-east despite the fact that there is a huge backlog in filling vacanciesfor teachers -- few are willing to be posted to the area and in Killinochchi for instance, where there are 40,000 students, there is one teacher to every 60 children.

Aid agencies have helped repair many school buildings damaged in the war, but according to aid workers, there are schools that carry on without buildings, under trees. Due to the constant movement of families displaced by the fighting, areas equipped to cater to a few hundred students now have to cope with few thousands.

Children have to share text books because these are in short supply as are notebooks and even pencils. There is, of course, no electricity in these areas and all studying has to be done by daylight.

But that does not deter students. Schooling has always had a high priority for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, more so now than ever before. Parents drill it into their children that school is their only window of opportunity, their passport to the world outside, away from war and misery.

``It also gives them an alternative tojoining the LTTE. There is nothing worse than a situation where young people become part of the fighting force because they have nothing else to do,'' said Schak.

Education department statistics show that children in the north-east fare no worse than those in other parts of the island, and sometimes much better. The national pass percentage in the O/L examination for 1996 was a low 26 per cent, with the districts of Vavuniya (32 per cent) and Mannar (30 per cent) in second and third position respectively after the capital, which registered the highest pass rate of 36 per cent. Last year, Vavuniya climbed to the top.

However, the sad fact is that fewer children take these examinations now than used to in these areas. According to the UNDP Human Development Report on Sri Lanka for 1998, education in the island's embattled north-east has weathered all odds, but the war has taken its toll.

Schools have always been happy hunting grounds for the Tamil Tigers to swell their ranks. Facing a tremendous manpowershortage of late, the separatist group has been stepping up its recruitment campaigns in schools in the area.