CTTU to picket education offices in support of volunteer teachers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 March 2003, 21:10 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) Tuesday announced that its members would picket the offices of North East Provincial Department of Education and the Provincial Ministry of Education in Trincomalee from April 1st if the authorities concerned failed to grant permanent appointments to one thousand Tamil medium volunteer teachers according to the Cabinet approval by the then Peoples Alliance government and the present United National Front government on or before March 31st, sources said.

The CTTU has invited all Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians to participate in the picketing campaign, its general secretary Mr.T.Mahasivam said. Several TNA parliamentarians have expressed their willingness to participate in the sit-in-protest in support of volunteer teachers, CTTU sources said.

The CTTU made this announcement Tuesday when the sit-in-protest by several hundred northeast Tamil medium volunteer teachers in front of the provincial ministry of education office entered 23rd day Tuesday, sources said.

In the meantime, TNA Jaffna district parliamentarian Mr. Mavai Senathirajah Tuesday wrote to the Prime Minister seeking his immediate intervention to solve the problem of one thousand Tamil medium volunteer teachers, sources said.

" We seek your intervention to restore the deteriorated educational structure of the northeast during the past two decades owing to the war situation,” said Mr. Senathirajah in his letter to the PM. “A severe dearth of teachers is prevailing in the northeast and more than ten thousand unfilled vacancies have accumulated during the last two decades, while at the same time nearly the same number of teachers is in excess in the south. The dilapidated state of the educational structure in the northeast need not be overemphasized. Hence, I seek your immediate intervention to restore this deteriorated conditions of the education structure in the northeast," he said.

He appealed to the PM to take immediate steps to order the authorities concerned to effect the appointments of the volunteer teachers as the first priority, as it had received the cabinet approval, and follow it by rectifying all other shortcomings to bring the education structure of the northeast to its once prestigious standard.