Lack of education faculties means poor quality teachers

Lack of Faculties of Education (FoE) in State Universities for Degree level training of Teachers has resulted in poor quality Teachers recruited into State schools, reveals a study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).

The study titled "School level bottlenecks in improving GCE Ordinary Level (O/L) performance rates in Sri Lanka", by researchers Ashani Abayasekara and Nishu Arunatilake, states that in Sri Lanka only two of the 17 State Universities have FoEs, while three have Depts of Education.

Of these 2 Universities, only 1 FoE trains Teachers to specialize in the Natural Sciences, with only 10 persons graduating in Science subjects, in 2014.

Further, the training was found to be of outdated teacher curricula with a limited practical component. Additionally, the subjects in the programme did not match the requirement of the school curricula.

The IPS said the study was done due to mounting concerns in the quality of Education, as reflected in the poor achievements of candidates at the 2015 GCE O/L exams.

While experts were quick to point out that poor academic performance is because of low government spending on education, the IPS research pointed the finger at the shortage of qualified and experienced Maths Teachers.

The results showed that 45% of the candidates failed or conditionally passed, because they failed in Maths.

It was also found that the O/L performance is significantly lower in 1C and type 2 schools and need special attention to improve their O/L performance rate.

A significant pointer was that schools with good results had more than adequate number of Maths Teachers, while the underperforming schools had a shortage of Maths Teachers.

The recommendations include to expand Tertiary Education to increase the number of Education Degree holders, improve pre-service Teacher Training programmes, conduct systematic Teacher Training recruitment and make Teacher allocation more equitable.