• Human resource lags behind 
• Training is insufficient, claims Principals’ Union citing retention issues  

Despite seeing an increase in English medium teachers, principals insist that schools do not have the resources to cater to the demands of English medium education.

“A lot of our students want to study in the English medium,” the President of the Ceylon Principals’ Union and the Principal of Lourdes College, Nattandiya, Piyasiri Fernando, told The Daily Morning yesterday (18). “We are seeing an increase in demand, yet, despite this increase, we don’t have the human resources to cater to this.”

Fernando said that in order to obtain an English medium education or a mixed medium education, several students have to travel a long distance to more prestigious schools. “We have not done anything to train teachers for the English medium as there is a difficulty in finding and retaining resources,” Fernando said.

These comments follow a confirmation by previous Cabinet Spokesperson, Dr. Bandula Gunawardana, who stated that there are approximately 765 schools that offer English medium education to students. Despite an increasing demand, low teacher salaries have been an impediment in retaining English medium teachers.

The Cabinet announced that it planned to recruit 2,500 new English-medium teachers to expand English medium classes in the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level, while developing a further plan to recruit 6,500 English medium teachers.

The Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Thilaka Jayasundara declined to comment.