Ampaa’rai Tamil, Muslim volunteer teachers complain of discrimination

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 July 2010, 06:17 GMT]
The president of Ampaa'rai District Volunteer Teachers' Union (ADVTU) accused Sri Lanka government for not making their appointments permanent though they had served for more than twelve years under trying circumstances and for having granted permanent appointment for seventy Sinhalese volunteer teachers an year and half before, sources in Ampaa'rai said. The president of ADVTU, M. S. A. Sabras, said that 109 Tamil medium volunteer teachers had not been made permanent in their appointments though they had faced several interviews held by Education Department in the past. He added that their union has launched a protest to draw the attention of the authorities to their five demands and that they will go on hunger strike if the demands are not met.

The volunteer teachers were last interviewed in February 2009 and are still not given permanent appointment, Sabras said.

“It is outright violation of human rights to give preference only to Sinhalese in employment opportunities and we have sent a memorandum to President Mahinda Rajapaksa regarding our demands,” ADVTU said. “We were told that the Governor has been directed to take action when we raised the matter with the President and the Minister of Education during the last elections but we were not allowed to meet the Governor. His secretary told us that there were no funds or vacancies to make our appointments permanent,” ADTU further said.

Allocations had been made to appoint 165 teachers in Batticaloa district, 118 in Trincomalee district and 179 in Ampaa’rai out of the 462 appointments allocated for Eastern Province.

In Ampaa’rai district only 70 Sinhalese volunteer teachers have been made permanent in their appointments out of the 118 allocated, ADVTU said.