Permanent appointments for Tamil volunteer teachers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 June 2003, 17:08 GMT]
One thousand Tamil medium volunteer teachers now serving in the Northeast province are to be made permanent in their posts on the instruction of the Public Service Commission (PSC) of the central government, NE Education Ministry Secretary Mr.R.Thiagalingam said Tuesday.

Mr.Thiagalaingam said he has received the list of names of 909 Tamil medium volunteer teachers from the PSC for permanent appointment. His ministry would start sending letters of permanency probably from next week, he added.

The PSC has not sent the names of the remaining 91 volunteer teachers to the provincial ministry as they have failed to submit the required information. Once the required information is furnished, they would also receive permanent appointment, education ministry sources said.

Following a prolonged campaign of agitation by the Northeast Tamil medium volunteer teachers that they should be made permanent, at a top level conference presided over by the Prime Minister, Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, last month in Colombo, it was decided to grant permanency to these teachers after obtaining legal advice from the Attorney General, sources said.

As the advice of the AG was in favor of the volunteer teachers, the PSC approved it and instructed the Provincial PSC and the Provincial Education Ministry to grant permanency to these volunteer teachers, sources said.

The Northeast volunteer teachers' association held a forty-day picketing campaign in front of the provincial education ministry office in Trincomalee in April this year, demanding that they be made permanent.