Education Minister Dr. Susil Premajayantha told Parliament yesterday that the Cabinet proposal and the concept paper to merge all 19 National Colleges of Education and turn them into a university will be forwarded to the Cabinet.
The Minister said that assistant lecturers will be recruited as graduates with a second upper pass and steps to be taken in this regard have been discussed with the University Grants Commission and the trade unions.
The minister said this while answering the questions posed by the opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. The Minister said that there are five services in the field of education namely Education Administration Service, Teacher Educator Service, Principal Service, Teacher Counsellor Service, Teacher Service and the teachers who are born from colleges belong to the Teacher Educator Service.
The minister said that recruitments are being made to colleges under the merit and district basis and 7,500 have been recruited and teacher training has been provided in the past.
The minister also said that during the previous recruitment, around 4,000 people were recruited for training annually.The minister said that steps are being taken to recruit about 2,100 for the teacher education service and when he took over the ministry about a year ago as the minister, there were 866 people for this service.
The minister also said that the tests for the recruitment of 705 teachers for the teacher education service were completed about two weeks ago and the practical tests will be conducted as soon as possible.
The Minister stated that the activities related to raising the 12 salary scales are being planned and the Cabinet paper for that has been prepared.
He said the recommendations of the Treasury and the Public Service Commission are necessary for that and the committee chaired by the Prime Minister on Tuesday or Thursday will take a decision in this regard and submit it to the Cabinet next Monday to make it a policy decision.
Ishara Mudugamuwa
