PM urged to solve Tamil medium teacher shortage in NE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 March 2003, 07:05 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Wednesday requested the United National Front government to grant permanent appointments to around one thousand volunteer teachers without any further delay as per the Cabinet approval already granted by the previous government “ This would only to some extent reduce the existing shortage of around 5500 Tamil medium teachers in the northeast province,” said TNA parliamentary group leader and the Trincomalee district parliament Mr.R.Sampanthan in a three page letter faxed to the Prime Minister Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe.

The government is reported to have taken a decision to halt granting permanent appointments to volunteer teachers until a national policy is formulated in this regard as Sinhala volunteer teachers in other provinces have also started an agitation demanding that they also should be given same facilities, sources said.

“This situation is very different to the situation prevalent in the rest of the country in regard to Sinhala medium teachers where as per reliable information, there is already an excess of over 5000 teachers. Appointment of Sinhala medium volunteer teachers in the rest of the country would only add considerably to the excess already existing,” said Mr.Sampanthan in the letter.

“The grievance of the northeast Tamil medium volunteer teachers who are now engaged in a sit-in-protest in front of the North East Education Ministry in Trincomalee, is that despite being selected for appointment as per cabinet approval they have not been appointed,” said Mr.Sampanthan in his letter.

Mr.Sampanthan further states: -

“The previous government granted cabinet approval for the appointment of three thousand Tamil medium teachers in the North-East classified as follows;

1. One thousand from amongst volunteers with requisite qualification

2. One thousand Graduates qualified teachers

3. One thousand G.C.E. (Advanced Level) qualified teachers

Application were called and interviews held for the appointment of 100 Tamil medium teachers from amongst the volunteer teachers, and 1000 graduate teachers

Due to the non-recruitment of Tamil medium teachers in the northeast, several young persons with GCE (A-L) qualifications had served for long periods of time as volunteer teachers in the northeast, particularly in the more difficult areas.

“After the assumption of office of the United National Front government all appointments given by the previous government were frozen due to financial constraints. Finance ministry approval was therefore sought recently, for the appointment of teachers, which had not yet been made, as per the cabinet approval already granted

“It would appear that the Finance Ministry has granted approval for the appointment of graduate teachers, but approval has not yet been granted for the appointment of 1000 volunteer teachers with the requisite qualification who had already been selected on the basis of inquiries and interviews held, and as per the cabinet approval already granted.”

 

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