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PM to meet PSC amid controversy over national school principal appointments
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is to meet the Public Service Commission on Monday to discuss outstanding issues, among which is the alleged discrepancies in a new marking system for appointments of national school principals.
The move came after the old boys and past pupils associations of several national schools in a letter complained to the Education Ministry Secretary over the issues created by the new criteria for the selection of national schools principals.
The letter explains that the new criteria and marking scheme are deeply flawed. The inclusion of IT capabilities in the grading system was patently unfair towards senior, more experienced educationists, they say.
The Royal College Union claimed that there were moves under the new criteria to appoint a 33-year-old principal from a Greater Colombo area, though he did not have the required experience to serve as the principal of one of the country’s premier state schools. An RCU spokesman said that they were consulting lawyers on challenging the new marking system.
The principal is reported to have performed well in the promotion examination based on the new system of marking. He says he has all the qualifications to be the principal of Royal College, Colombo, but confirms that he has not got any letter of appointment.
The issue was also raised in Parliament on Friday and yesterday by Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Kanchana Wijesekara.
However, Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam told the Sunday Times yesterday that the Ministry had no plans to make such a change to Royal College. “We have no plans to appoint an unqualified individual as a principal. These are all lies spun by conspiracy theorists,” he said.
Mr. Kariyawasam said the PSC had earlier approved the appointments of 302 candidates who had been interviewed and selected as principals, but that the commission had now blocked those appointments. “I think it’s unfair, but the PSC is an independent commission and can do so. However, once the appointments come through the PSC, there’s nothing anyone can do as it is an independent body empowered to make appointments to national schools anywhere in the country,” he said.
Ceylon Teachers Union General Secretary Joseph Stalin said the Education Ministry had drafted a flawed criteria regarding recruitment of national school principals.
He said a national school such as Royal College should get a principal with a Class 1 Grade from the Sri Lanka Education Administrative Service (SLEAS). However, the PSC had now annulled the process and taken steps to block the appointments, he said.
Meanwhile, the present Royal College Principal, B.A Abeyrathna, said he was not retiring and that the Education Ministry had not informed him of any new principal being appointed to the school . “There is some talk that a new principal is to be appointed. The old boys and the Royal Collage Union were unsettled about that,” he said.