National education policy mooted

Lakshmi de Silva

A national education policy that will not be changed with each change of government or minister will be formulated by the end of the current year. A special committee to draw up the policy will be appointed by Parliament next month, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardhana said.

The Minister was speaking at a function at Western Provincial Chief Minister’s office to present teaching appointments to 254 graduates Saturday.

He said the new Education Act would be passed by Parliament before the year end.

It is important for the line Ministry and Provincial Councils to ensure that the quality of teaching and the dedication of teachers were brought up to high standards, the Minister said.

However there were certain teachers who served some popular schools for 20 or 25 years without getting transfers while there were schools that had teacher shortages. This state of affairs should be remedied as teachers should work with dedication and commitment to ensure that schoolchildren were not neglected. For instance the standard of Sinhala of a large percentage of schoolchildren was below standard.

Therefore improvement of the standard of teaching had to be done as a national priority, the Minister said.

Western Province Chief Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said there were three types of teachers. The first was those who were dedicated to their profession and loved the children like fathers or mothers. Such teachers were a blessing to the country. The second type of teachers were like traders. They were interested in making money out of teaching and not interested in the welfare of the students in their schools.

There was still a third variety of teachers who were involved in trade unions and their main activity was going all over the country engaged in TU activities. He said he would urge the newly appointed graduate teachers to dedicate themselves to the teaching profession.