A/L paper marking to resume soon

Daya Perera and Lokubandara Munasinghe

COLOMBO: Teacher Trade unions agreed to attend paper marking duties on a date set by the Examinations commissioner, after the circular amending salary anomalies in the Teachers’ and Principals’ service is issued, at a meeting with the Ministerial sub-committee yesterday.

Examinations Commissioner Anura Edirisinghe said paper marking would ‘hopefully’ begin on September 10 (Monday) at 32 centres, according to the understanding reached with the trade unions at the meeting.

According to the initial plan, paper marking was to be completed by August 4, but due to the trade union action to boycott paper marking by the teachers, the original target could not be achieved.

The Department is to decide shortly whether to keep the papers at the same marking centres or bring them to Colombo until they re-start paper marking next week.

The Education Ministry said GCE Advanced level candidates and their parents should not fear of any delay in releasing the GCE advanced Level results, since the Ministry together with the trade unions will work on a programme to ensure results on time.

Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister Karu Jayasuriya, Power and Energy Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne and Education Minister Susil Premajayantha attended yesterday’s meeting with the teacher trade unions which called the boycott of A/L paper marking to win their salary demands.

The agreement was reached between the ministerial sub-committee and the trade union leaders after discussing the issue from 11.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Public administration Ministry yesterday.

They agreed to take up the salary issues in the education sector separately from those of other public services.