Education unions dispute Ministry’s statistics of teachers reporting to work
View(s):While the Government proclaimed victory in re-opening schools with less than 200 students, unions representing teachers and principals engaged in trade union action disputed the Education Ministry’s statistics regarding the number of teachers and principals who showed up for work.
Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told Parliament on Friday that the Government was able to re-open 5059 schools in the island on Thursday. The first stage of the re-opening programme applied only to Grade 1-5 in schools with less than 200 students.
He said 98% of the schools that were supposed to re-open on Thursday did so, with 16% of students in those schools attending classes and 26% of teachers reporting to work. The number of teachers who actually reported to work was even higher than official statistics show, since some teachers opted not to sign the school attendance register even though they reported to work, he added.
Minister Gunawardena claimed that more than 69% of principals in the re-opened schools in the Northern Province, 67% in the Eastern Province and 55% in the Sabaragamuwa Province had reported to work. The same provinces had the highest number of student attendance while Western Province had the lowest attendance of seven percent among students, he said.
However, said attendance was similarly low among students when schools re-opened following the Easter Sunday attacks and after previous COVID waves, he said. As such, the Government expected attendance to pick up in the coming weeks, he added.
Earlier this week, the Teachers’ and Principals’ Trade Union Alliance, which is spearheading trade union action demanding a resolution to the long standing salary anomaly issue faced by teachers and principals, announced a general strike on Thursday and Friday.
The strike was announced in protest at what unions say was an arbitrary decision on the part of the Government to re-open selected schools on October 21 and also to protest alleged actions by some Government ministers and MPs to intimidate teachers and principals to report for work.
The unions however, disputed the statistics given by the Education Minister. Ceylon Teachers’ Union General Secretary Joseph Stalin told a media conference on Friday that claims of about 98%of targeted schools being re-opened were false.
He also said provincial education authorities in the North had submitted false information regarding the number of schools that had re-opened and the teachers and principals who had reported to work.
“Attendance on Friday was even lower than it was on Thursday,” Mr. Stalin said.
He said the Government needed to understand the message teachers and principals were sending to the Government through their successful strike.
The trade union alliance however, has urged teachers and principals to report to work tomorrow, while continuing to fight for their demands. Some other unions said they will continue with an indefinite strike.
(SJ)