Legal action delays over 38,000 teacher appointments
Over 38,000 teacher appointments have been held up due to ongoing legal action, while several schools have been affected due to lack of teachers. Some of the schools in the outstations face closure while some of the classes have been stopped due to the lack of teachers. Shortages exist for GCE (A/L) teachers of science, information technology, maths, commerce, languages and technology subjects. The Education Ministry has made attempts to second teachers from other schools to fill in the vacancies, but has not been successful as some teachers have been reluctant to accept the appointments due to distance.
Education Ministry sources said some schools have already closed certain A/L classes due to lack of teachers. A senior Education Ministry official said that teachers require training, and it was already a year behind in the recruitment programme. Among the 38,000 teachers to be recruited are 23,000 Development Assistants who were to be recruited as teachers. As the Development Assistants were already on the payroll the Ministry could obtain their services without an additional expenditure. A court case filed demanding that the age limit of teachers be extended to 45 years, has halted recruitment.
Another 7,000 were due to be recruited as graduate teachers at the provincial level, but due to another court case that recruitment too was halted. Another group due to be recruited to teach specific subjects for A/L, was also halted due a case. Education Ministry officials said that a number of issues have risen due to the non-availability of teachers. -DWI
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