CTU challenges Teacher’s transfer, allegedly for his FaceBook poems
View(s):Teachers Unions and the Ministry of Education (MoE) traded charges over allegations that a school teacher from Kurunegala has been transferred from his school on charges of writing poems on social media. The MoE last week had handed over a letter of transfer to teacher Kushal Salika attached to Kuliyapitiya National School (KNS) for publishing poems about the school on FaceBook (FB).
Shalika said an inquiry was held to ascertain whether his poems were insulting or damaging the image of the school. Shalika told the Sunday Times he had not written anything detrimental to the school. “I only wrote of things happening in the school,” he said. Shalika said that, at the inquiry where 2 MoE officials were present, he had opened his FB and showed all the poems he had written . “The officials then concurred the poems did not in anyway damage the school,” he said.
However, 2 days later, he received a letter from the MoE transferring him to Mayurapada Central College, Narammala. He said he joined KNS in 2014, to teach the new Technology subject introduced recently, but the school he has been transferred to does not have any vacancies in that subject stream.
“I have been put to teach Maths which I am not conversant in, and the transfer is only to replace a teacher who has gone on sick leave for two weeks,” he said.
The Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) said such action by the MoE cannot be condoned.
CTU Gen.Sec., Joseph Stalin said the transfer had been done in a haphazard manner, without conforming to National Transfer Policy Circular No. 2007/20, on teacher transfers. “We have written to the MoE against the injustice and will keep track of the problem. If nothing is done to reinstate him, we will take legal action,” Mr Stalin said.
The MoE last week in a statement, denied the teacher was transferred because of the poems on FB but, due to other reasons. However, the MoE stopped short of giving reasons for the sudden transfer. Â - Chrishanthi Christopher