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Absenteeism high among school teachers

by Manjula Fernando

A recent study by the Education Ministry has revealed that around 20 per cent of teachers, over 35,000, do not report to work on any given day.

This has affected school activities enormously and the principals are complaining that the high rate of teachers taking leave is a major obstacle to school administration, Education Ministry sources said yesterday.

The attention of the Ministry has now been drawn to this serious issue and a solution - a special incentive programme - is being launched by the Ministry officials. "Since we cannot force them not to take annual leave, we thought of a special incentive program to persuade them to attend school everyday," sources said.

Teachers who perform well and show impressive attendance records will be granted foreign training scholarships. Already 500 such teachers have been sent to the UK, Malaysia, Israel, Korea and Canada for training and another batch will be sent abroad before the end of this year. The Ministry is also planning to organise a national felicitation ceremony in honour of teachers who have taken only a few days leave during their service period.

A special scheme has also been introduced recently for teachers of schools in difficult areas. They receive 40 points instead of 10 when being considered for foreign scholarships in addition to double salary increments each year.

Close to 200,000 teachers are serving in the nearly 10,000 schools islandwide.

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