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Wednesday, 18 January 2012

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Salaries of public servants have been increased by 150 % - Minister Seneviratne

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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