Mahinda Chintana enhances free education

Stanley SENEVIRATNE- Kurunegala North Group Corr

In line with the Mahinda Chintana policy to ensure the quality of free education, a sum of Rs 3,387,582 and Rs 1,649 million were spent on provisions of free school textbooks, uniforms and nutrition programs respectively in 2008 and 2009, North Western Province Chief Minister Athula Wijesinghe said.

The NWP Chief Minister, in his capacity as Wayamba Province Education Minister, was speaking at a ceremony held at the Ministry Auditorium Kurunegala to handover 144 new appointments to difficult areas in the Wayamba Province. He said the National Teacher Transfer Policy was introduced to maintain a systematic teacher transfer system and enhance service delivery.

Teacher recruitment was increased significantly to improve the student teacher ratio up to 19, graduate teachers, Tamil teachers for estate schools and volunteer teachers were appointed to increase the number of teachers in the country.

Chief Minister Wijesinghe also said steps are taken to solve problems in the Sri Lanka Education Administrative Service, 200 officers were promoted to Class I after a long period of time. Computer laboratories were established in 2,431 schools islandwide to expand the IT education.

Priority was given to infrastructure development in National Schools. Rs 380 million has been invested on construction of new buildings and Rs 3,213 million on renovation and modernizing of existing facilities and Rs 115 million has been spent to purchase furniture and equipment for the National Schools. 516 schools have been identified for improvement of physical and human resources under the Navodya School program.

He said that 150 schools have been identified for modernization as 'Isuru Schools'. The objective of the project is to develop these schools to the level of open schools in selected Divisional Secretariat areas to minimize the high demand for national schools. The construction work on 40 schools has commenced at a cost of Rs 642 million islandwide.

Infrastructure facilities of universities were improved resulting in an increase in the number of students admitted to universities from 16,292 in 2005 to 20,369 in 2008. The university of Uva Wellassa was established at a cost of Rs 1,000 million to improve accessibility to higher education.

A faculty of medicine at the university of Rajarata and a Faculty of Allied Health Science at the University of Peradeniya were established at a cost of Rs 330 and Rs 280 million respectively to improve the necessary human resources in the Health sector.

The John Kotelawela Defence Academy was upgraded to the university level to increase access to higher education in the Security Forces, he added.

Wayamba Local Government Secretary U.B. Thambagala, Deputy Chief Secretary Kumari Weerasekera, Secretary to the Chief Ministry NWP R.D. Dayaratne and Director Education NWP G.J.N. Tillekeratne also spoke.