Teachers : To Be or Not To Be, as Trade Unions Ponder

COLOMBO (News 1st); Teachers and Principals Trade Unions will meet on Monday (18) to decide whether or not they would report to work on the 21st of October when schools re-open.

Trade Unions said despite multiple rounds of discussions to seek a solution to their issues, they are yet to be provided with a reasonable answer.

Since July 2021, Teachers and Principals have been protesting for almost all around the country, in an unprecedented show of force.

On the 12th of July, Fourteen trade unions representing teachers and principals went on strike despite calls from the government to give up their trade union action and continue with teaching activities.

The Trade Unions representing Teachers and Principals are making the following key demands :

01. Permanent solution to the perennial salary anomaly issue.

02. Immediate withdrawal of the Kotelawala Defence University Bill

03. Allocation of 6% of GDP for education

04. Permanent solutions to service issues faced by Principals and Teachers.

05. System for Extra-Curricular Activities attended by Teachers and Principals

The Government has promised to pay one-third of the teachers’ salary demands and in two stages—the first in January 2022 and the second in 2023.

The union leaders said they would announce their decision the following day, after a “lengthy discussion” among themselves, and decided to continue their strike action.

These developments confirm that the ongoing action of 250,000 government school teachers and principals across the country—the longest strike in Sri Lanka in recent times—has reached a critical juncture.

In parliament in early October, Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardene said the ongoing teachers’ salary crisis would be resolved in 2022.