Kolambata Kiri, Gamata Kekiri

Rasika SOMARATHNA

While urban schools enjoy a surplus of 1,196 English Teachers, rural schools face an acute shortage, with the number being as high as 3,468, a report compiled by the Presidential Task Force on English and IT revealed.

This discrepancy is further compounded by the fact that there are 866 schools without a single English Teacher.

Knowledgeable sources yesterday attributed this anomaly to the lack of a clear teacher deployment policy.

According to statistics the Government efforts at equitable distribution has met with resistance due to the interference of politicians and other influential figures who help teachers deployed to schools termed as remote and difficult to get transfers to urban schools of their choice.

For instance, in the Uva Province around 13 percent (110 schools) do not have a single English Teacher while in the same province there is a surplus, numbering 310. This means that the townships have an excess while the remote villages face an acute shortage.

English teacher shortage is most acute in Uva, North Central, North and East provinces. Only in the Western Province , a schools have English teachers.

If equitably distributed, such large differences in numbers should not exist as the 9,866 public schools in the country, have 21,453 English Teachers to serve them.

The statistics unearthed by the Task Force point out that a large number of schools in remotest parts being denied the service of English Teachers, while there is an excess of teachers in urban schools.

It has to be noted that the chart produced by the Task Force is based on figures provided by the Zonal Educational Offices and may not be 100 percent accurate. However, an official report on the matter is due within the week.