Sri Lanka celebrates World Teachers' Day

by Staff Writer 06-10-2023 | 10:14 AM

COLOMBO (News 1st); World Teachers' Day is celebrated in Sri Lanka on Friday (06).

The theme this year is "The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage".

There are only 247,000 government teachers in Sri Lanka, for over 4.3 million school children.

A major issue in the teaching sector in Sri Lanka is the massive shortage in recent times.

Trade unions said there have been serious obstacles in carrying out academic activities in an orderly manner, due to the shortage of 45,000 teachers.

The Ministry of Education said several measures are being taken to resolve the teacher shortage.

Applications have been called to recruit 5,450 teachers to teach A/Level science and mathematics subjects and foreign languages.

The Education Ministry also announced that 4,000 more teachers will be recruited immediately to fill the vacancies left by teachers who retired and resigned this year, while a decision was also reached to recruit 542 academic graduates for the teaching service.