6,000 teacher appointments at provincial level
Working with PSC to confirm 1,800 Acting Principals
Education Minister Susil Premajayantha told Parliament yesterday that the Education Ministry has already taken measures to fill 10,535 teacher vacancies in national schools within the next two weeks.
The Minister further said that the steps have already been taken to recruit 6,000 teachers at provincial level. The Minister said this while joining the debate on education. The Minister also said that the country’s education sector suffered a severe setback by the year 2022 due to the post COVID-19 crisis situation. All the examinations were delayed by around six months.
Since 2019, teacher training sessions had not been held and all recruitment had stopped. Due to the retirement of many teachers and principals in the administrative field at the same time and also due to the limitation of the retirement age from 65 to 60, the shortage of teachers worsened. “The education sector itself faced a great crisis at this time in a background where there was no allocation of funds for new recruitments. The payment of salaries was also very difficult and the mechanism of providing textbooks, mid-day meals and uniforms could not be implemented properly. There was no future plan to make financial provision for that. Also, there was no fuel for the buses and vans to go to school, and the public transport was inactive and there were queues for fuel, so all those activities were hampered by not being able to bring inspectors to check the answer sheets. I even intervened on a personal level to find solutions for them,”said the Minister.
He further said that in a background where the electricity was cut for more than 14 hours, the space for engaging in educational activities was limited for the students, even through the online method. Because of this, students had to be assigned to nearby schools, but since five years had not even been given new deputies, practical problems arose there as well. In 2019, the principal exams were held but the appointments were not given and those appointments were given after I became the Education Minister.
“We worked with great effort to solve all these problems in a period of two and a half years. Accordingly, the examination schedule and school calendar were systematically updated. In the year 2024, two Advanced Level Examinations were held and the results of the first examination were released last week in a short span of three and a half months. We are planning to conduct the A-Level Examination which should be held in August this year and finish it in November this year. By 2025, steps will be taken to restore the examination schedule by holding the examination at the relevant time as scheduled. The Ordinary Level Examination was also scheduled to be held in April this year, but had to be postponed to May and June. We are taking steps to release the results by September. In this way, the examination schedule was restored until the examination was held on time. Accordingly, any Minister who will be appointed in the year 2025 can now have the ability to conduct the examinations in due time,”he added.
The school textbooks related to the year 2023 and 2024 have also been given to the children and the order for the textbooks related to the next year has also been handed over to the Government Printing. At the time of my appointment as the Minister of Education, the institution, which had an overdraft of one thousand two hundred million rupees, is currently making a profit of 2.3 billion rupees. In the last year 2023, we worked to get 70 percent of the school uniform requirement as a grant from the Chinese government. This year, the grant was increased to 80 percent.Accordingly, requests have also been made for getting uniforms next year.
It is planned to provide school lunch to 1.7 million students by spending 26 billion rupees with the 16 billion rupees allocated by the government and other parties also contributing to the school lunch that was being given to about a million schoolchildren. For that, all schools with less than 100 students, except national schools, and all primary sections of schools, will take steps to provide lunch to nearly 9,000 students. The programme of providing sanitary napkins for schoolgirls begins today (6) and will be implemented from June 10.
“There was no financial provision in 2022 for the construction of the education sector, but from the year 2023, through various projects, essential renovation works were carried out in distressed schools. All the arrangements for making appointments based on merit in the third grade of Education Administrative Services, which have been delayed for three years, have now been prepared. All school sports which were stopped in schools are re-conducted annually. We have taken steps to complete all the missed games and restore co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Officers had not been recruited for the education administration service in three years and now the results of the closed examination have been released and arrangements have been made to appoint 404 before June 30 and to conduct the open examination in the future. We have reached the final stage of the second interviews to fill 808 vacancies in teacher education service. 4,672 principal appointments were given which had not been given for about five years and is working with the Public Service Commission to confirm 1,800 Acting Principals.
“We have also focused on the shortage of teachers in the school system. It is not an exaggeration to say that the number of vacancies is around 40,000. A number of 189,801 teachers are currently working in all national schools and provincial schools. 18,789 development officers are also working among them. The above development officers are not recorded in the 26,092 teacher shortages. Accordingly, the actual shortage of teachers is 8,000. Measures are being taken to resolve it and gazette notices have been issued for the recruitment of 2,535 teaching assistants. About 6,000 more appointments are to be given at the provincial level.
