A certain number will be recruited into the Teaching Service by the end of this year - Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya
Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya stated that there is currently a shortage of 40,000 teachers across the country, and that the government expects to recruit a certain number of the required vacancies by the end of this year.
The Prime Minister made these remarks in Parliament today (21), while responding to a question raised by the member of the opposition, Mujibur Rahuman.
The Prime Minister further stated:
There are currently 4,240 teacher vacancies in the Sinhala medium and 2,827 in the Tamil medium for Grades 1 to 5 in government schools. The number of vacancies form Grades 6 to 11 reported 11,274 in the Sinhala medium and 6,121 in the Tamil medium.
In the Western Province alone, government schools report 1,310 Sinhala medium and 302 Tamil medium teacher shortages for Grades 1 to 5. For Grades 6 to 11, the vacancies stand at 1,325 for Sinhala medium teachers and 397 for Tamil medium teachers. As a whole, nationwide there are 40,000 vacancies for teachers.
The Public Service Commission has issued a recommendation that recruitments to fill the vacancies in the Ministry of Education should be done through an examination-based process. Currently, there is an ongoing court case regarding the recruitment of graduates into the teaching profession. Taking all these matters into consideration, attention is being directed towards recruiting graduates to fill the existing teacher vacancies.
However, the Prime Minister emphasized that the government expects to fill at least a certain number of the required vacancies by the end of this year.
