CTU slams Govt. for new preschool education policy
View(s):The Government’s move to formulate a national policy for preschool education by allowing people outside the National Education Commission (NEC) will only diminish the importance of the NEC, a body established to formulate policies for the education sector, the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) said last week.
CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin said the NEC was the body that had been established to study and prepare policies for the education sector and to ignore them would be detrimental to the system.
Last week the Government appointed a committee led by Professor Meddegoda Abeyatissa thero to look into reforms that should be brought in to improve early education for children.
This move had also sidelined important educational institutions including the National Institute of education (NIE), the provincial council education ministry, and the Education Ministry.
Under the 1939 Education Act. No. 31 only the Education Ministry has the powers to formulate policies for the education sector and under the 13th Amendment the implementation process falls on the provincial councils.
“To not include them in the process will only deviate the very purpose. We call on the Government to immediately include the relevant institutions in the process so that healthy reforms could be included in the preschool education system,” Mr. Stalin said.