Govt. bypassing Provincial Schools to fill Teacher vacancies in National Schools- CTU
View(s):The Government’s plan to post the 4,286 teachers, recently recruited into the mainstream, to National schools, has come under severe criticism from the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU).
The CTU said the teachers were recruited solely to fill the vacancies in Provincial schools, but now, the Ministry of Education (MoE) is posting them to fill vacancies in National schools.
CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin said these teachers were recruited under section 6.1.1 of gazette notification no. 1914, where Advanced Level students from difficult areas were selected to the National College of Education (NCE). These selections were based on teachers willing to serve in rural areas and hence, those from urban areas, with high z-scores, were ignored.
However, now the Government is appointing these teachers to National schools, underscoring a clause that say, “They may be appointed to National schools only if there are no vacancies in the Provincial schools.” “But there are several vacancies in Provincial schools and the Government, once again, is ignoring the need,” he said.
Citing examples, he said the North Central Province with 1,500 vacancies had only 86 places filled, while the Vavuniya Divisional Secretariat with around 40 vacancies, is getting only 16 teachers.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be presenting the Letters of Appointment to the teachers today (8) at 10 am at Temple Trees.
- CC