CTTU to meet Education Secretary, postpones strike

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2005, 11:08 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU) Sunday announced that it has postponed the strike scheduled to commence on Monday 24 October as Dr. Tara de Mel, Secretary of Education, has agreed to meet a four member CTTU delegation at the Colombo Education Ministry on Wednesday 26th October, CTTU General Secretary Mr.T.Mahasivam said.

The demands included the setting up of a separate Department for Tamil Language Medium Schools Development in the Ministry, opening of branches of the National Institute of Education (NIE) and Educational Publication Department in the northeast province, to hand over all schools which are located in the high security zones in the province to education department and, to withdraw all State armed forces deployed within the fifty meter vicinity from schools in the province, sources said.

The talk is to be held at the written invitation of Ministry Secretary through his Administrative Manager Mr. E.K.Wijeratne to Mr.Mahasivam.

Mr.Wijeratne requested Mr.Mahasivam to postpone the strike action till then.

The CTTU during the first week of October held a token strike in the northeast putting forward twenty-five demands that if no positive action was taken before October 20, its members would be on strike from October 24 onwards till demands are met, sources said.