• Claim no clear plan to hike education funding

Teacher and principal trade unions (TUs) are planning to launch a protest campaign in October, claiming that the Government has not presented any clear plan to increase funding for education or resolve the long-running teacher-principal salary anomaly through next year’s Budget.

Speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (12), Ceylon Teachers’ Union President Priyantha Fernando said there had been no indication that the Government was preparing to address the teacher-principal salary anomaly.“The last time one-third of the total salary anomaly was addressed was under former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Government. Nothing happened after that. The current Government is not even talking about it,” he said.

He added that the unions were also waiting to see how much would actually be allocated for education in the next Budget.“We heard that there won’t be any significant increase in allocations. In protest against these issues, we are planning to launch a protest campaign in October,” he said.When contacted by The Daily Morning, Education Ministry Secretary Nalaka Kaluwewa said: “We still don’t have an idea about how allocations will be made. We are in the process of discussing this with the Finance Ministry. However, we can assure that there will not be any reduction.”In 2021, the then Government led by Rajapaksa appointed a Cabinet sub-committee to study the issue following a month-long strike by teachers’ and principals’ unions. Based on the committee’s recommendations, a partial salary adjustment was granted, with a promise that the remaining disparities would be resolved later. However, TUs maintain that the anomaly remains unresolved to date.