Comments on: Government to recruit 12,854 grads as teachers – Daily News http://www.educationforum.lk/2007/11/government-to-recruit-12854-grads-as-teachers-daily-news/ Discussion on Sri Lankan Education Issues Mon, 03 May 2010 05:50:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Amal Siriwardena http://www.educationforum.lk/2007/11/government-to-recruit-12854-grads-as-teachers-daily-news/comment-page-1/#comment-8428 Amal Siriwardena Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:41:16 +0000 http://http://www.educationforum.lk/2007/11/government-to-recruit-12854-grads-as-teachers-daily-news/#comment-8428 This recruitment is supposed to be due to 'prevailing teacher shortage in rural and under privileged schools.' Well, certainly there are schools which are short of teachers. But let us look at the overall position. The state system has 200,000 teachers for 4.3 million students ( someone please correct my figures if I am wrong). An overall ratio of 1:21. A very high ration of teachers indeed, by any reasonable standards! I doubt whether even the elite private schools have Such a good ratio, The problem, as came out in the education forum meeting yesterday, is with the allocation. While we have some schools chronically short of students, others are having heavy over staffing not to mention,ridiculous situations like schools with four teachers and five students. On the other hand, is the main purpose is to give employment to unemployed graduates? By the way, I believe the original objective of Tharuna Aruna was to train graduates for the Private Sector- have they given up on this? If graduates cannot be employed in the commercial sector for whatever reason, and we have to find some employment for them in the state sector to avoid future insurrections, well this is another matter. The cost of employing them being less than the cost of insurrections, it may even be justifiable ! But we have to keep in mind that the cost of this will keep on mounting and it is not sustainable in the long run. This recruitment is supposed to be due to ‘prevailing teacher shortage in rural and under privileged schools.’ Well, certainly there are schools which are short of teachers. But let us look at the overall position. The state system has 200,000 teachers for 4.3 million students ( someone please correct my figures if I am wrong). An overall ratio of 1:21. A very high ration of teachers indeed, by any reasonable standards! I doubt whether even the elite private schools have Such a good ratio,

The problem, as came out in the education forum meeting yesterday, is with the allocation. While we have some schools chronically short of students, others are having heavy over staffing not to mention,ridiculous situations like schools with four teachers and five students.

On the other hand, is the main purpose is to give employment to unemployed graduates? By the way, I believe the original objective of Tharuna Aruna was to train graduates for the Private Sector- have they given up on this? If graduates cannot be employed in the commercial sector for whatever reason, and we have to find some employment for them in the state sector to avoid future insurrections, well this is another matter. The cost of employing them being less than the cost of insurrections, it may even be justifiable ! But we have to keep in mind that the cost of this will keep on mounting and it is not sustainable in the long run.

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