Educator Service Lecturers vow trade union action if issues not addressed
View(s):Sri Lanka Educator Service Lecturers’ Trade Union, whose members play a key role in training teachers, has urged the government to provide a speedy solution to two of their key outstanding issues immediately.
A section of the union staged a protest outside the Education Ministry in Battaramulla last Monday, and were assured they would be given an audience with Prime Minister/ Education Minister Harini Amarasuriya.
Union President M P H Sawanathilaka told Education Times that they were yet awaiting the appointment as of Friday.
The union has decided that if there was a failure to provide a meeting, and failure to provide a solution to their issues, they would resort to trade union action.
Mr Sawanathilaka said that one of their main grievances is that, as educator service lecturers they have to wait for longer periods to gain their promotions, though other executive grades in service gain their promotions much earlier. He said their promotions should move on unhindered.
Citing an example, he said, that an instructor in the Grade III of their service has to wait 10 years to move to the next grade, whereas other services in the same grade can gain their promotion within 10 years.
The second outstanding issue was that their salaries were lower than the newly recruited teachers and the salary anomaly needs to be cleared.
Mr Sawanathilaka said until the salary anomaly is corrected, they could pay an allowance to the affected persons.
He said until recently when 580 new recruits were taken in for their service, they had only 670 members.
The Educator Service Lecturers currently provide their services in Colleges of Education, Teacher Training Colleges and at centres for Professional Development for Teachers across the country.
The lecturers play a key role in training teachers who are new recruits as well those in service.
Mr Sawanathilaka pointed out that former Education Ministers Susil Premajayantha and Bandula Gunawardena were keen in resolving the issue, but it was the officials who were regularly blocking their efforts, by drafting the cabinet papers with errors, so that they get rejected.
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