{"id":87272,"date":"2019-04-18T16:01:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T23:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87272"},"modified":"2019-04-18T16:01:48","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T23:01:48","slug":"health-education-and-yahapalana-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/18\/health-education-and-yahapalana-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"HEALTH, EDUCATION AND YAHAPALANA Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA\u00a0 PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The Ministry of\neducation, under Yahapalana has come in for much criticism. Much time is spent\non issues concerning school admissions and administration of national schools,\nwith very little time being available for issues of policy and monitoring of\ndelivery mechanisms and innovations in education and teaching, improving\ncurriculum and examinations, research and development, said critics in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The  Ministry \nof Education is in a state of chaos, said the media in 2017. Important\ndecisions and signing off on urgent programmes and activities are   left dangling  and delayed. There is no delegation of\nauthority.Nominations and\napprovals for Tender Evaluation Committees are \nnot done in a time.  Letters and\nresponses to urgent needs take weeks to get signatures and approval. There have\nbeen instances where the letters put up for signatures have been lost or\nmisplaced. <\/strong>Sometimes, files\nget returned without even a comment or signature. Nominations to attend\ntraining programmes, workshops and meetings, get approval only at the very last\nmoment. The Ministry of Education  \nhas one of the lowest rates of utilization of funds.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletes of\nRatnayake Central College, Walala made a clean sweep when they won the first,\nsecond, third and fourth places at the Asian Schools Cross Country\nChampionships in Hong Kong in 2017. This team was refused funds by the Ministry\nof Education for their trip to Hong Kong. The Sports Ministry provided tickets,\nbut they had to bear other costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Minister\nof Education has  insisted on his face\nappearing on the vouchers given to students to obtain material for school\nuniforms. And he delayed the printing\nof textbooks for next year because he wanted a different photograph of himself\nin the books   said  Rajiva Wijesinha. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***&<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers\u2019 unions took exception to a letter,\nissued by the Colombo Zonal Education office, in March 2018 instructing\nPrincipals of Colombo schools, under the Western Provincial Council, to invite\nMPs and Provincial Councilors to important school functions and to treat them\nwith \u2018due respect.\u2019 Zonal Education Director has sent a letter telling\nprincipals that it is the duty of a government official to respect politicians.\nHe has also attached a list of Provincial Councilors who represented Colombo\nZonal Education Development Structural Committee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Structural Committees, consisting of\nprovincial councillors, had been established in the Western Province, during\nthe tenure of Prasanna Ranatunga as the Chief Minister of the Western Province,\n2009-2015.  The Structural Committees\nthat existed in the 11 educational zones in Colombo had significant powers.\n“They can also influence the appointment of a Principal. We have\ncontinuously asked the current administration to disband the Structural\nCommittees. This government came into power, promising to depoliticize the\nsystem. But now they are instructing principals to invite politicians to attend\nschool functions and treat them respectfully said the teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahapalana\nwas planning in 2018, to do away with 315 Divisional Educational offices\ncountrywide, replacing them with 200 Zonal Education (ZE) offices. <\/strong>This  <\/strong>came under\nheavy criticism from the Ceylon Teachers Union \nwhich maintained that, adding more ZE offices to the Education system\nwill not improve it. The 97 ZE offices in service at present, are under\nperforming. Increasing their numbers is not going to improve  efficiency. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 ZE offices are responsible for Principals\u2019 and\nTeachers\u2019 appointments, transfers, pensions and maintenance of their personal\nfiles, but they have not being doing their job efficiently, Teachers and\nPrincipals who sought official assistance from the ZE offices, have made\nseveral complaints against the service provided. ZE offices need to be\nstreamlined and made efficient, before more ZE offices are added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. The Ceylon\nTeachers Service Union  is opposing a\nmove by the Ministry of Education to have retired officers serve in a committee\nto look into malpractices of procurements, during the tenure of the Education\nMinister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam. CTSU said the function belonged to the\nAuditors. It is not a function for former officers.  It was also questionable to call in former\nretired officers including retired audit officers to conduct investigations,\nand give them allowances and other payments. We believe it may be a move to\ncover up malpractices or to manipulate the system,\u201d the Union said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

**&<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government had in December 2017, summoned around 2,000 school\nprincipals to Temple Trees to  give money\nto school libraries.  The government has\npromised to give a sum of Rs.100,000 to Rs.600,000 to selected schools to replenish\ntheir libraries. But they  had failed to\nhand over the funds. The principals who gathered from across the country went\nback empty handed and were told that the money would be credited to the School\nDevelopment Society (SDS) account. Around 25 principals\nwere selected and given token cheques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ceylon\nTeachers Union  said the principals had\ntravelled long distances to attend the function despite their busy year end\nschedule but were made to stand out without food or drinks for hours. They assembled\nearly in the morning and were made to stand out for hours before they were\ntaken in. They were also not given a monetary allowance for travelling long\ndistances to attend the event. Eventually \nthey were handed some guidelines and told that that the money would be\ncredited to the SDS account.This was highly unnecessary they could have done\nthis by sending letters to the principals,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***&<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Education is responsible for\nthe death of Ambalantota  National School\nPrincipal Rohini Kumari Atapattu, during a training programme  organized by the Education Ministry  for Principals,  at the Wayamba Teacher Training Centre, in\nWariyapola, Kurunegala  said Ceylon\nTeachers Union .Rohini( 52), fell from a 40-foot rope ladder she was trying to\nclimb down during the programme.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CTU has demanded to know why such a combat\ntraining should be given to school principals.  Also the\nMinistry has chosen a private company to conduct the training programme.  Who selected this company. Were tenders called\nand how much has been spent on the programme. The Ministry is trying to make\nprivate companies wealthy by putting the lives of principals at risk, The\nMinistry must immediately conduct an investigation into this death, said CTU. The government officials held responsible for\nthe death had not been made to face any disciplinary inquiries by the Education\nMinistry the CTU) complained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 CTU said that this was not an isolated\nincident; in 2013 Raddolugama Pagnananda Madya Maha Vidyalaya Principal W. A.\nS. Wickramasinghe died following a stroke while exercising in the morning at\nthe Rantambe Cadet Camp. The Ministry of Education has halted the leadership\ntraining programme after the tragic incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***&<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ceylon\nTeachers Service Union (CTSU) expressed concern over a Government  proposal to offer loans to A\/L candidates to\nfollow Degree courses and join as teachers, on completion of their Degrees. <\/em><\/strong>This seems a\ngood proposal to me, but not, it appears, to the teaching profession. This move\nwill lead to teachers with \u2018substandard\u2019 Degrees joining the teaching service. <\/em><\/strong>There is no\nguarantee the teacher has a recognized Degree, as Degrees from private\ninstitutions too, would be accepted under this scheme,\u201d the union said. <\/em><\/strong>  This\nwill also lead to a situation where the 19 National Colleges of Education (NCE)\nwill face the threat of closure, as prospective teachers will look to complete\ntheir Degrees from private institutions. <\/em><\/strong>The NCEs\nneed to be upgraded and offer Degrees instead of Diplomas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

***&
\nThere\nare 10,162 schools in the country but there are not enough security officers.\nThus most of them can\u2019t obtain leave for months, said  the Educational Non-Academic Employees Union\nin 2018. Although there should be at least three security officers at 9809\nschools, considering the size, most of these schools have one guard. National\nschools at least need four guards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government decided to reduce the service\nhours of security guards from 12 hours to nine hours in November 2017. This was\na step taken to incentivize the guards by giving them access to overtime\npayments because most of them work 12 hour shifts. However around 10,000 school\nguards have not been paid their overtime payments.”They can\u2019t even get\novertime payments for working on government holidays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Union had sent a letter to the Minister of\nEducation explaining the difficulties faced by security officers attached to\nschools and problems that had arisen after zonal education offices refused to\npay overtime payments to them prescribed by the government. There were no\nsecurity officers for 2000 schools that provincial councils ran. And after dark\noutsiders use the facilities in these schools for nefarious activities. This is\na scary situation but the government doesn\u2019t seem to care.”   (\ncontinued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA\u00a0 PIERIS The Ministry of education, under Yahapalana has come in for much criticism. Much time is spent on issues concerning school admissions and administration of national schools, with very little time being available for issues of policy and monitoring of delivery mechanisms and innovations in education and teaching, improving curriculum and examinations, research and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}