Teachers’ Union concerned about budget allocation for private uni’s

By Kusal Chamath  
Ceylon Teachers’ Union expressed concern about budget allocation to provide loans to private universities.  

General Secretary of the Union Joseph Stalin pointed out that the government had made a budget allocation of Rs.200 million to provide loans under the My Future scheme to private universities and that it was just another step to ruin free education. He said only 30,000 out of more than 300,000 of students passing the GCE Advanced Level Examination would be admitted to the state universities and the government has initiated the loan scheme for others to enter the private universities.  

“This would only boost private sector education institutes and would be another step to ruin free education. The government instead of providing adequate facilities to the state universities and widening the opportunity for university education, the government has allocated public funds to boost private universities. Minister of Education has stated that 101 schools were closed in 2018 and another 1,226 schools with the strength of less than 50 students would be closed this year. Another 3,000 schools with less than 100 students were facing the danger of closure for want of adequate facilities. It is the responsibility of the government to implement a plan to prevent the closure of schools in this manner and not to boost private educational institutes with public funds which is a severe blow on free education” he said.