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Teachers’ petition gets 30K signatures

15 Aug 2021

By Buddhika Samaraweera Teachers’ and principals’ trade unions have launched an online petition to force the Government to address their salary issues, which the unions claim had garnered more than 30,000 signatures by last (13) morning. According to Ceylon Teachers’ Services Union (CTSU) General Secretary Mahinda Jayasinghe, the petition has been signed by more than 30,000 people as of last morning. The petition is part of the trade union actions that have been initiated by the teachers’ and principals’ trade unions, to force the Government to address the teachers’ and principals’ issues, including that of salary anomalies. Teachers and principals had organised protests all over the country to force the Government to look into their issues. However, following the recent calling off of their street protest campaign due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic situation, the trade unions announced that they will shift their protests on to the digital space. Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) President Priyantha Fernando recently told The Morning that the trade unions have decided to organise digital protests, as the recent protests conducted across the country to force the Government to address their issues had been suspended due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic situation. Accordingly, there are plans to use social media to protest regarding the issue, he mentioned. Nearly 30 teachers’ and principals’ trade unions had decided to withdraw from all online teaching activities from 12 July until further notice, in protest over the arrest of a group of trade unionists and student activists, including Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) General Secretary Joseph Stalin during a protest in Colombo, and the lack of a solution to their issues including teacher-principal salary anomaly issue. In addition to online teaching activities, the teachers and principals had also withdrawn from duties related to sending applications for examinations, including the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE A/L) examination online. They had also withdrawn from teaching activities at regional learning centres recently established by the Education Ministry in order to facilitate the students who do not have adequate facilities to learn online. Also, nearly 5,800 teachers and principals had decided to withdraw from practical examination duties of the GCE Ordinary Level (O/L) examination that commenced on 26 July. In addition, they have also decided to withdraw from duties related to the GCE A/L and Grade Five Scholarship examinations that are to be held in November 2021. Jayasinghe also commented on allegations levelled against the teachers and principals by various parties that the recent teacher-principal protests had contributed to the rapidly rising number of Covid-19 cases and Covid-19-related deaths. He noted that there was no evidence to suggest that there was an increase in the number of patients infected with the Covid-19 virus due to any protest organised by the teachers. In such a situation, he stressed that if the Government and certain pro-government parties continue to insult teachers and principals, they would not hesitate to intensify the trade union actions that have been launched so far.


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