Treasury refusal delays NE volunteer teacher appointments

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 February 2003, 17:12 GMT]
The appointment of one thousand Tamil medium volunteer teachers on permanent basis in schools in the northeast province is to be further delayed due to the refusal by the government treasury to allocate necessary funds for that purpose, education sources said Friday.

United National Front (UNF) government is of the view that a national policy on the volunteer teacher permanent appointment should be formulated covering the entire island before giving permanent appointments to northeast volunteer teachers, sources said

The World Bank and th Peoples Alliance (PA) government in power in the year 2000 agreed to appoint three thousand Tamil medium teachers to overcome the shortage of teachers in Tamil medium schools in the northeast province.

Accordingly the PA government and the World bank agreed to provide appointment to one thousand graduates, one thousand A/L/qualified persons as teachers and one thousand volunteer teachers to be given permanent appointment

The three thousand teachers (graduates, AL qualified persons and volunteer teachers) should have been appointed three years ago when WOrld Bank approved the appointments three years ago.

However it was delayed for reasons unclear to many, education sources said.

Although the treasury has released funds for the graduate and AL qualified teacher appointments, it has now turned down the request for funds to appoint volunteer teachers on permanent basis until a national policy is formulated, sources said.