As this is being written the striking teachers and principals were to decide whether they would not report for duties or call off their campaign to attend schoolwork. The Government is determined to reopen schools on October 21 with or without the attendance of the teachers while moves are afoot to recruit graduate trainees attached to the Education Ministry to fill in the breach. Meanwhile, Law and Order Minister Rear Admiral (Ret) Sarath Weerasekera has already warned teacher unions that threatening teachers who report for work would be met with dire punishment and that the police would be deployed near schools to ensure the safety of teachers reporting for duties.
This is an unfortunate situation where teachers who should be models to the young have forced themselves into a situation where the heavy stick of the law is to be used against them - a reversal of roles in the classroom where it is the teachers who use the rod against their charges.
It would be better if both sides take a step back so that a workable compromise would be arrived to the satisfaction of both parties. Sabaragamuwa Governor Tikiri Kobbekaduwa wants the teachers’ salary demand met in toto on the condition that they be not permitted to conduct tuition classes. It is not clear whether this would be legally permissible, but the idea has some merit. In any event the Government has explained its difficulties in acceding fully to the teachers’ demand for a salary increase in one go. Instead, it has expressed its willingness to grant the increase in two installments. It is also mindful of a possible chain reaction if the teachers win their demand on the latter’s terms. The granting of teachers’ salary demand could have a domino effect vis-a-vis other sectors in the public service.
It is indeed unfortunate that at a time the country is being opened up and the green light given for stalled activities to resume, the teachers have taken an unwise decision to boycott school work thus penalizing the student population for no fault of theirs. This way the country runs the risk of producing a backward generation with students who did not see the inside of a school for nearly two years having their agony further prolonged due to the intransigence of teachers and principals who ought to know better.
One recalls that universities that were closed for lengthy periods due to various upheavals in the recent past snatched away a good part of campus life of students. The students have lost two years of their school life due to the pandemic. Now we may well see a situation where the present lot will be forced to sit for their GCE (O/L) examination at a time they should be in employment or at an advanced stage in higher education. Hence the teacher’s action is tantamount to playing with the future of the younger generation.
It is moot whether getting graduate trainees to teach in schools as an alternative would have the desired effect for the simple reason that they are not trained for the job and psychologically not equipped for the task. A section of teacher trade unions have however vowed to report for duties. Things would be in a highly disorganised state where multiple subjects are involved leaving gaps in the whole school programme. Hence the need for both the Government and the teachers to arrive at a settlement for the sake of the younger generation. Schools should also be opened uniformly and not selectively. The school syllabus is a uniform one common to all students and exams too are held at the same time for all. There are still two days for schools to commence and it is hoped that both sides will reach a compromise for the sake of the students’ future.
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A gifted cricketer
Sri Lanka’s 20-20 World Cup campaign could not have began on a more inauspicious note when our cricketers in the UAE would have received the shocking news of the demise of the country’s first Cricket Test Captain Bandula Warnapura (68) yesterday as we were due to play our first match in the tournament. He faced the country’s first-ever Test ball in 1982. Warnapura was a household name even as a schoolboy of Nalanda College with his batting exploits regularly featured in the sports pages. He broke a 44-year-old batting record when he scored 118 not out in the 1972 Battle of Maroons. He also captained the Lankan side in the pre-Test era and in an unofficial Test match against the West Indies was felled by a bouncer of giant pacie Sylvester Clarke and was never the same batsman following this episode. Warnapura led a rebel team to apartheid-era South Africa that signaled a premature end to his career but he continued to be popular among the Lankan cricketing fraternity and a respected figure among those in the game. At the time of his death he was President of the Bloomfield Cricket and Athletics Club. His cricketing exploits will be cherished for a long time.
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