How the President's School Development Teachers' Issue was Resolved (video)

A meeting was held at the President's Office between representatives of the School Development Officers' Association and the President, following an invitation from President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

The representatives stated that although the current government or they themselves were not responsible for the existing problems, as professionals, they were facing many issues.

The President, who extensively discussed the problems of school development officers, emphasized that it is the government's objective to protect the professional dignity and respect of everyone. The President also stated that it is the government's expectation to recruit graduates with experience working in schools into the teaching service, and that he invites them to sit for the examination according to the Teacher Service Constitution.

The President's remarks:

"Now, what we need is to find the legal path to recruit this group into the teaching profession. Actually, this problem could have been resolved back in 2023. Now, the necessity is how to legally assign this group to the teaching profession."

Even from the Treasury's perspective, if this group enters the teaching profession, there will only be a very small change in the salary scale. Yes, the Treasury can bear that. We have also identified a significant number of vacancies.

What is the legal path we have to appoint this group to the teaching profession? One path we have is the examination. Even if they come through the examination and are new to teaching appointments, they are not new to the public service.

I know what happened when trying to give teaching appointments. Opposition... others came and filed petitions, making a mess of it. Appointments in many institutions are stuck due to internal legal processes.

So, when it comes to legal recruitments, we now have three methods. One of the methods is coming through an examination. You all don't fall into the other two methods, do you? Because you don't fall into coming from a Science Faculty or through Bachelor of Education degrees, right?

So, the problem we have with the examination is what happened after the exam was held. Since other graduates came with a lawsuit, the examination should have been held for everyone. At first glance, about 51,000 applications come in. We have to take more people from the 'closed exam' (limited competitive examination) than the number of people in your school. But because of the immediate problem here, I think a larger portion of the people we take can be represented by these individuals.

However, I believe our responsibility is to create a legal methodology that won't lead to another lawsuit. Let's say we make a Cabinet decision that only affects this. But as soon as a Cabinet decision is made, a lawsuit will follow. Therefore, I will devise a method to legally recruit you all without any further obstacles.

You don't have to leave the school. You will continue to work as a Development Officer, in the same way you are currently in the school. Afterwards, you can complete the other necessary qualifications. We will state the qualifications. If you complete those qualifications, we will recruit you.

Then, from these 16,000, we can legally recruit a certain number. The remaining group... no one will be sent out of school, I take that responsibility.

Following the discussion, representatives of the School Development Officers' Association also expressed their views:

"During this discussion, we discussed many things. The President held discussions with us for more than two and a half hours. We thank the President very much for holding such discussions and addressing these issues."

We discussed many of the matters we hoped for and were able to conclude them successfully. So, the success depends on the implementation of the results of that discussion.

Since many positive answers were given, these processes are temporarily halted. With the decisions made by the Executive President of this country, we trust that and make this decision.

Watch the video related to this event ›