Parliament
Salaries of public servants have been increased by 150 % - Minister
Seneviratne
Sandasen MARASINGHE and Irangika RANGE
Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa presided, when Parliament met at 1pm
yesterday. After presentation of papers and oral questions, the House
took up the adjournment motion moved by UNP MP Joseph Michael Perera,
regarding the salary hike of public servants for debate.
At adjournment
Public Adminstration and Home Affairs Minister John Seneviratne: told
Parliament yesterday, that salaries of public servants have been
increased by 150 percent during the period of 2004 to 2012.
That was the reason why the public servants have given the biggest
mandate to the President and the government at previous elections.
Minister Seneviratne, was responding to an adjournment motion moved by
UNP MP Joseph Michael Perera. The government spends a massive amount of
Rs 65,000 million annually, to pay salaries of public servants. But not
even a single cent had been increased during the UNP regime.
Joseph Micheal Perera (UNP): The government must take measures to
increase the salary of the public servants by Rs 2,500. President
Mahinda Rajapaksa when presenting the budget speech, emphasised that the
salaries of public servants would be increased by 10 percent from 2012.
But this has not been implemented still. Today people, specially the
public servants were living amidst great difficulties.
Prices of essential items and fuel would increase within the next few
weeks.
That is why we suggest that a Rs 2,500 salary increase be granted to
the public servants. We know that the cost of living would go up within
the next few weeks, with the increase of the prices of essential items.
Very soon, the people of this country will come on to the streets
demanding for an increase in their salaries.’
Therefore, we urge the government to take measures to grant a
reasonable salary increase which would be sufficient to meet their
day-to-day requirements.
Dr Jayalath Jayawardena (UNP): The government has misled the public
servants with false promises. Though the President had promised an
increase of Rs 2,500 to the public sector during the previous
presidential election, the public servants have not received it so far.
The government has totally neglected the working class, especially
the public servants who are frustrated today. Protest campaigns of trade
unions have been suppressed by the government.
A H M Azwer (UPFA): The government had not forgotten the public
sector employees. That is why President Mahinda Rajapaksa had promised
the Rs 2,500 salary increase during his budget speech in Parliament last
month.
Today rapid development is being taking place in the country. Sri
Lanka was moving towards prosperity. Soon, Sri Lanka will be converted
into a IT education and technology hub in the modern world.
The House was adjourned until 1 pm today.
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Z-score system, has not caused injustice to students - Education
Minister
Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena, yesterday stated that the
Z-score system of this year’s GCE (A/L) results, had not caused any
injustice to the students who sat for the Advanced Level Examination.
He also stated that certain groups were attempting to politicize the
fault in the district ranks.
He made this observation in Parliament yesterday, in response to a
special statement made under Standing Order 23(2), by Opposition Leader
Ranil Wickremesinghe.
In his statement, Ranil Wickremesinghe stated that the Advanced Level
Examination was a decisive examination in a student’s life and queried
as to why the authorities delayed to finalize the Z-score. He stated
that the UNP stood against the Z-score system.
He also stated that the Intellectual Committee which was appointed on
this issue, was not concerned about the real issue on the injustice
faced by the students, because of the issue. He stated that there was
none to take the responsibility of this issue. He suggested that a
Parliamentary Select Committee be appointed to solve this matter.
Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena, in response to the special
statement, stated that the Examinations Department was never
politicized. He also stated that the Education Minister was never
involved in matters concerning the Examinations Department. Everything
had been performed by the Commissioner of Examinations and his staff
independently, in accordance to the provisions of the Public
Examinations Act No 25, 1,968.
He added that the Ministry was involved only with matters such as
formulating syllabi, textbooks, teachers’ guide, training teachers, etc,
but not with examination related matters.
He added that the Examinations Department conducts 364 examinations
including 40 foreign examinations. Minister Bandula Gunawardena further
stated that there were serious issues with A/L Examination results
during the past, such as, year 2005.
But, the students came forward to solve the problems with their
parents, teachers and principals. He added that this time it was not the
case where some other groups had attempted to highlight it
unnecessarily.
He said that the Ceylon Teacher Services Union had stated before the
results were released that they would file a petition in the Supreme
Court if the results were not released before December 31. He added that
they also said that they would go before the Human Rights Commission in
this regard.
He further said that MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake, had also made a
statement in Parliament in this regard. But when students had a problem,
they come to see us. In 2005, there had been a problem concerning
Chemistry A/L results, due to a technical fault of the OMR machine, so
that the government took measures to admit an additional 978 students to
the medical faculty.
The medical faculty of Rajarata University, commenced to provide
facilities for those students and the government confined to admit those
additional number of students to the medical faculty in the successive
years. He also stated that the students have been given time until
January 17, to apply for re-correction. He said only 50,724 students had
applied for re-correction. Last year more than 62,000 applied for
re-correction.
The papers of the new syllabus and old syllabus had been marked and
the data had been entered properly. The responsibility of the Education
Department ends there.
The rest is with the Higher Education Ministry. He also stated that
no student had complained to the Experts Committee appointed in this
connection that they had a problem with their results on Z-score.
Higher Education Minister S B Dissanayake, in his response to the
special statement, said, that finalizing of the Z-score could be made
after the results of the examination had been received only. So, that
the Z-score could not be finalized in haste, though somebody had needed
to do so.
Minister Dissanayake stated that Prof Ralph A Thatil, who formulated
the Z-score system, was not included in the Expert Committee on the A/L
Examination results, as he had given a letter before the SC against his
own system, on a previous occasion.
Prof Karunatilleke in this committee is one of the outstanding
experts in the field today, while the rest were also highly qualified.
The other suggestion had been to remove the Z-score.
But historically, there had been a problem that certain papers had
been either easy or difficult. So some students receive high marks and
it was unfair by the other students.
Under this Z-score system, injustice is solved. So the students have
confidence on this Z-score system.
One suggestion by the Opposition Leader was that job-oriented courses
should be introduced to universities.
We have introduced many such courses to universities this year and
last year too. They are all job-oriented and we have taken measures to
teach them in the English language as well. During the Mahinda Rajapaksa
regime, the number of university entrants have been increased by 5,000.
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Nearly 852,253 elders’ ID cards issued
Social Services Minister Felix Perera, told Parliament yesterday that
there were over 1.6 million Sri Lankans over the age of 60, of whom
around 930,000 were in the age group 60-70.
The minister said in response to a question raised by UNP MP Sajith
Premadasa, who asked if the government had in place, a special mechanism
to issue special ID cards to senior citizens.
The minister said that there was such a system in place and 852,253
elders’ ID cards have been issued so far. He added that steps have also
been taken to enable elders to get services done speedily in public
institutions such as hospitals, banks and transport services.
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‘Bills not moved due to amendments’
Leader of the House and Irrigation and Water Resources Management
Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, informed Parliament yesterday that the
government would not move the Bills titled Local Authorities (Special
Provisions) Bill and Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill, as
there were many amendments suggested by various parties.
Since the Election Commissioner, UNP MP Sajith Premadasa and several
other Organizations have proposed amendments to the draft bills, it has
been decided to submit these draft bills to the Advisory Committee and
then take them up at the committee stage, once consensus is reached.
The minister further said that the government would present two bills
acceptable to all, considering the amendments made by all these persons
and parties to Parliament in the near future.
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