Regional, central Education authorities in dispute

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 May 1999, 16:35 GMT]
Although the World Bank has given permission to fill about 4,500 vacancies for Tamil medium teachers in the north east province, senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Colombo are taking steps to call for applications at national level and not only at provincial level, ministry sources said.

According to education authority sources in Trincomalee, this has caused dissatisfaction among the north east provincial administrators, who say they have already taken steps to recruit new teachers, calling for applications at provincial level.

However, a senior official of the central Ministry of Education and Higher Education is of the view that applications should be called at national level through the Educational Services Commission and not by the Provincial Public Service Commission.

Meanwhile, North East Provincial ministry officials say about 4,500 vacancies exist for Tamil medium teachers in the province. But the central ministry officials dispute this, arguing that there are only about three thousand vacancies in the province, Colombo sources added.

Meanwhile, the World Bank team during its recent visit to Sri Lanka has given the go ahead to the Sri Lankan government to recruit Tamil medium teachers in three batches.

In the first batch, 1500 would be hired. Once they are provided with necessary training, the second batch would be recruited, sources said.