Teachers to protest against arbitrary transfers

Considering the statement made by the Education Minister yesterday in Parliament, the issue relating to the teacher transfer board is worsening, Ceylon Teachers’ Union Secretary Joseph Stalin said.

Addressing the media yesterday, he said that according to the statement made by the minister, the transfers of 8,893 teachers had been approved.

The minister announced yesterday that a decision had been taken to make the teacher transfers as approved by the Teacher Transfer Board, except for the teachers who are teaching O/L and A/L classes.

"We know that the 2022 GCE Advanced Level (A/L) examination was held, and now we have to engage with the process of scrutinizing the answer scripts. There is no issue with the transfer of the A/L teachers. We have to start the Ordinary Level (O/L) exam on May, and the transfers will not affect that either," Stalin said.

But with the statement made by the minister relating to teacher transfers, no specific date was mentioned to do the transfers. It is clear from the Minister’s statement in Parliament that the teacher transfers are being further stalled, he added.

"All we have to do is implement the process of approved teacher transfers. We had a discussion in this regard with the education officials on Monday (20)," he said.

Therefore, we have decided to call all the teachers who accept their transfers in front of the Fort Railway Station today at 10 a.m. to oppose the decisions taken by the President and the Minister, Stalin said. 

After gathering, we will take stern action over the decision of arbitrary transfers, he added. (Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)