News
Multiple challenges hamper students and teachers
View(s):By Chrishanthi Christopher
Schools opened last week, but many students and teachers stayed away. Provinces reported only up to 60% attendance. The Education Ministry reported 80% attendance countrywide.
While attendance in Colombo, its suburbs and provincial cities were good, in rural areas children did not have public transport.
It is understood that children from poverty stricken homes are avoiding school to take up jobs to supplement family incomes.
Previous bus fare increases, the rising costs of private school bus services, and three-wheeler charges worsen the situation.
Teachers complained that many children had turned up without having breakfast and some had not had a meal the night before.
The Ceylon Teachers Union president, Mr Theeban Arokiyanathan who is in Jaffna, said that families are encouraging children to seek menial work. These are children from families economically deprived following the 30-year war.
“In a class of 40 children, only around 30 are turning up, with around five of them having completely dropped out of school. The turnout among teachers has also been low with many opting to take leave to purchase fuel,’’ he said.
Teachers, especially in remote areas, are hampered from going to schools because of a lack of fuel and the public transport breakdown.
The same is true in the plantations where many teachers have had to queue up for fuel and other essentials.
The heavy downpours in the central, Sabaragamuwa and southern provinces last week had contributed to a sharp drop in attendance of students and teachers.
Schools in the most affected regions, Kotmale, Nuwara Eliya and Hatton, of the central province were forced to shut down because of severe flooding.
CTU Nuwara Eliya district secretary Mr V. Indraselvan said that the Sisu Sariya bus service is not operating.
Meanwhile, the essential learning Content (ELC), a condensed syllabus prepared by the National Institute of Education (NIE) aimed at recovering lost time during the school closures in the last 30 months, is yet to be distributed.
Teachers said the content is only online and getting copies of the syllabus was difficult due to the shortage of printing paper in the country.
Teachers question how they could comply with the request made by the Education Ministry to work to quickly catch up for lost time over the past 30 months due to the dual impact of the coronavirus disease pandemic and the economic collapse.
The ministry has requested that all teachers work to bring all children back to school, identify their readiness to resume studies, focus on vulnerable students, and catch up in a short time.
The ministry has said it will be distributing printed copies of the ELC to all teachers by next week.
Secretary M.N.Ranasinghe said talks have started with the SLTB and private bus operators to extend the recently introduced ‘podu pasal seva’, or common school service, to remote areas.
He said schools will continue to operate on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays until further notice. However, next week schools can decide to open on Friday as Poya Day falls on Thursday.
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