To minimize teacher shortage:

President orders school-based teacher recruitment

Dharma Sri ABEYRATNE

The Education Ministry will implement a strictly school-based teacher appointment system aiming to minimize teacher shortages in rural and underprivileged schools. Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena has been advised by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to introduce a school-based teacher recruitment system as a solution to the continuous teacher shortage, commonly reported from rural schools.

The President pointed out the need for having such a mechanism with immediate effect to reduce the teacher shortage following lengthy discussions with ministers and provincial chief ministers at last Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Education Ministry sources told the Daily News.

Earlier, the ministry introduced a mechanism to reduce the teacher shortage in schools by implementing a subject wise teacher recruitment procedure.

In accordance with this mechanism, the number of existing vacancies for a particular subject in a school are considered when teachers are appointed to a particular school to teach designated subjects.

The distance from the teacher’s living area to the school is also considered as otherwise teachers would opt for transfers if they have to travel long distances.

The teacher shortage is hard to rectify since teachers who are appointed to rural schools, especially with transport difficulties get transfers to better schools through influence.

Teachers will be recruited only for schools where vacancies are available to discontinue this practice.

According to the new method, applications will therefore be called from teachers living close to the school where vacancies exist.