- Responds to Ministry claiming lack of funds to recruit English teachers for some Provinces
The General Secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU), Joseph Stalin claimed yesterday (5) that the Government has not taken adequate steps to overcome the shortage of teachers in Sri Lanka’s teacher service.
He said this when he was contacted by The Daily Morning to inquire about a statement made by an official of the Ministry of Education to the media that the Ministry does not have enough funds to fill the English teacher vacancies in the Uva, Central and Eastern Provinces.
“This problem has existed for a long time. Instead of filling the vacancies at the Provincial level, the Ministry should fill these vacancies according to the subjects. We know that there is a huge lack of teachers in subjects like Science and English. So, this lack of teachers should be filled by students who pass out from Teacher Training Colleges. But, it is not being carried out by the Government. On the other hand, the Teacher Service Examination for graduates which was to be held last month (March) has been postponed because of a Court order. The Ministry can also recruit students who have graduated from universities with a Bachelor of Education. In the end, these issues will cause more inconvenience to children,” he said.
He also alleged that the incumbent Government is seeking to shrink the public service, which he claimed can aggravate the current situation of this issue. “The Government is happy about receiving the first tranche of the International Monetary Fund bailout. The Government would not be able to expand the public service according to those conditions. Therefore, the Government has stopped many recruitments and halted many Government exams held in order to recruit to the public service. The same is the issue with the recruitment of teachers. Therefore, we hope that the Ministry will take steps to fill these teacher vacancies as soon as possible because teaching is not something that can be ignored like other professions,” he said.
Recently, the Ministry had said that sufficient funds had not been made available for the recruitment of teachers of English. It was reported that the Ministry had received adequate funds to recruit teachers of English only for the Sabaragamuwa, North Central, North Western, Western, Southern and Northern Provinces. The Central, Uva and Eastern Provinces had been left out for the want of funds, it said.
Several attempts made by The Daily Morning to contact the Minister of Education, Attorney Dr. Susil Premajayantha proved futile.
Source By themorning.lk
