Teachers in short supply: Ed. Ministry looking into ways to fill up vacancies

22,000 graduate teachers to be recruited after exams next month

The Education Ministry is looking at ways of filling up around 32,000 teacher vacancies which will be created at the end of this year.

The public education sector is already short of around 22,000 teachers, and will suffer another setback with the retirement of around 10,000 teachers by the end of the year due to the new retirement policy coming into effect, and Education Ministry official said.

As an initial plan exams will be held island wide next month to select 22,000 graduate teachers.

Those currently working as development assistants and others in the public sector can apply to sit for the exams.

This means that people already employed in the public sector would be recruited as graduate teachers. Earlier the Government had decided to halt public sector recruitment due to the financial crisis.

Education Minister Susil Premjayantha said the Public Service Commission’s approval had been obtained for the proposal.

Those who qualify from the exam would be required to face an interview and would be recruited on a provincial basis. Those recruited would be required to follow a one year diploma to be trained as teachers.

However, irrespective of the diploma they would be positioned as teachers from next March onwards.

Meanwhile an Education Ministry official said among the 10,000 teachers retiring by the end of this year there were around 7,000 A/L commerce, science and maths teachers.

“Many development officers we are trying to recruit were arts graduates and there will be an issue in finding teachers who can teach subjects such as science and maths,” the Education Ministry official said.