Political supporters would teach kids

By Manjula Pradeep Weerasuriya

Around 800 political supporters have been absorbed to the Sri Lankan Education Administration Services (SLEAS) as acting subject directors violating recruiting procedure, an education ministry union charged.
This has caused an outcry with the Teachers’ Associations accusing the education ministry of violating the SLEAS Constitution by making appointments on political favouritism, says Joseph Stalin, president of the Sri Lanka Teachers’ Association.
Since the term of the Public Service Commission has expired on April 8th, 2009, all recruiting powers have been handed over to the secretaries of ministries. As a result political favourites entered the public service through the backdoor without sitting for competitive examinations, Stalin said.
When LAKBIMAnEWS asked Minister of Education, Susil Premajayanth, he said that the ministry has not made any appointments of this sort and that the provincial council has no legal right to make such appointments and that eventually such appointments will be null and void. Joseph Stalin, however says otherwise; he points out that while the ministry denies such appointments, they are trying to confirm these appointments through a cabinet paper.
According to Joseph, 248 appointed acting subject directors in the central province were ordered to be removed from their posts by a letter signed by Thilak Iddamalgoda who is specially designated to look into these matters.
In addition, 50 more acting directors have been appointed at zonal level. Also, 200 such directors have been appointed in the north central province. A coordinators position has been created which was not in existence before and the new appointees have been appointed as special education directors. Another 11 officers for 11 zonal education posts have been appointed in the western province. They have also taken steps to refill the vacancies of coordinators as the first set of them were promoted as directors.
When Nimal Bandara, Secretary of the Education Ministry was queried about the issue, he said that a cabinet paper to confirm 800 acting subject directors, who worked in that position for sometime, had been forwarded to a cabinet sub-committee for approval.