Teachers unions to launch protest in East against transfer scheme

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 June 2011, 16:03 GMT]
Four major teacher trade unions Monday announced that they would launch token sick leave protest in the eastern province against the implementation of a controversial teacher transfer scheme. Under this scheme the provincial education ministry has been transferring excess teachers from schools.

540 Tamil medium teachers and 110 Sinhala medium teachers have been served transfer orders.

Following the failure of talks held between representatives of teachers’ trade unions and with the Provincial Governor Mohan Wijewickrema on Monday at the latter’s office in Trincomalee, the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU), the Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU), Islamic Teachers Union (ITU) and East Tamil Teachers Union (ETTU) jointly announced that they would launch one-day sick leave protest on June 23 Thursday through out in the province.

They will decide on Thursday about the future course of trade union action pending on the outcome of the token protest.

These trade unions have protested against the transfer scheme stating it has violated the National Teacher Transfer Policy of the Ministry of Education and not consulting them before formulating such scheme thus causing hardship to the teaching community and affecting the education.

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