Teacher training schools to be elevated to university status

The government has decided to upgrade all teacher training schools and training colleges to university level to offer a degree after a four-year course on education instead of a training certificate of education, Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Bandula Gunawardana said today.

Minister Gunawardana added that the education service would also be made a closed service in order to pay a higher salary as all teachers in the national education – from grade 1 to grade 13 – will be graduate teachers.

Making the national education a closed service will help the government to absorb top professionals to the national education system with higher salaries without making salary anomalies in other similar services.

The cabinet paper presented by Education, Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Dulles Alahapperuma was approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday, Minister Gunawardana said.

A committee of eminent persons from education, higher education and other top professional bodies will be appointed to look into the modalities for these education reforms and make recommendations accordingly, he added.

“At the moment, GCE A/L qualified youths who have failed to enter universities due to insufficient Z score are recruited for the three years of teacher training programmes. The graduates also follow a three-year degree course at the university.

Many of them take teaching as their profession with better salaries than trained teachers because they have been absorbed to the national education service as graduate teachers.

The new government thinks this system has to be changed for the betterment of teachers, students and the country. That is why these reforms are introduced,” Minister Gunawardana emphasised. (Sandun A Jayasekera)