'Due recognition for technical education'

The German Technical School was brought under the purview of the Youth Affairs Ministry as it was found that the Sri Lanka Transport Board had 1,800 mechanics who did not know how to use a spanner.

It was to overcome such problems that we requested that the German Technical Institute be brought under our Ministry, Youth Affairs Minister Dullas Alahapperuma said.

He was addressing the tutorial and other staff of the Institute that he visited to resolve some disagreements among the staff.

Alahapperuma said the German Tech Institute had been under four different Ministries during that number of years.

In 2008 I had requested that the Institute be brought under the purview of the Transport Ministry as the SLTB had not recruited a single employee trained at the Institute. Similarly no employee had been recruited to the Railways from the German Railway Training Institute.