15 Aug 2019

To enhance the habit of reading books among school children of Sri Lanka, with the idea of encouraging them to read, the national reading promotion programme-kalana mithuru poth sumithuru introduced for the school system now has become famous among school children, the first stage student evaluation is due in coming September.

On a concept of education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam Attorney at Law identifying reading habit as a necessity of children who seek for new world knowledge through technology this programme has come in to operation measuring of school children’s reading skills in 4 main stages as schools, zones provincial and national from last year month of August. The students of grade 6-13 of all schools of island have been provided the opportunity to join this programme to enhance the habit of reading books.

This programme will clearly enable to identify the most suitable books to read, develop reading habits by reading often through that to enhance knowledge, understanding and entertainment. All students who participate for this will have to submit a literature based report on the books that was read by students. Among those reports the students who submit the best report can join with the best school readers of the year and have the opportunity to gain platinum, gold and silver medals. Hence, nearly 3000 students reading highest number of books have become eligible for medals this year. Accordingly, the platinum medal for students who submit reports reading more than 100 books, gold medal for read between 75-100 books, Silver for students who read between 50-75 books will be offered.             

The Circulars containing all details about this programme continuously in operation annually have been forwarded to all schools, further details can be obtained from ministry of education website www.moe.gov.lk 

07 Aug 2019

Many government, semi government and private training institutes have joined the education ministry in providing on the job training for students following advance level vocational subject stream under 13 years guaranteed education programme, which is in operation since 2017 on guidance of education minister Mr. Akila Viraj kariyawasam.

Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management also has agreed to give NVQ 04 level vocational training for students following advance level under this programme and the memorandum of understanding confirming was recently (01-08-2019) signed at education ministry by Secretary of education Mr. M.N.Ranasinghe and Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism and Hotel management Institute Mr. Dilip De Silva.

National Craft Council, Sri Lanka Agriculture Department and Gem and Jewelry Research and Training Institute also will sign the MOU in future.

On the job training has already commenced at that institute for those who joined vocational subject stream training in 2018.

06 Aug 2019

As a concept of education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam athletes won provincial, national and international levels have been enlisted to school system as sports coaches recently in order to enhance school children’s sports ability and to create a socialized generation with a good personality.

Accordingly for the first time in history 3388 athletes who have shown efficiency in various sport events have been enrolled as sports coaches for the education system, and sent to pre service training on two stages. New school sports coaches recruited in last April to education system 3365 completed 1^st stage training were placed to National Education Collages on 29-07-2019.

If a coach has any issue with regard to placement, they have been given the opportunity to send their appeals to education ministry and consideration of appeals will be before the next school term commences.    

09 Aug 2019

A meeting was held at the ministry of education today (08) between minister of education Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam Attorney at law and ambassador of America Ms.Alaina B. Teplitz in order to have the service of volunteer English teacher service of United States Peace Corps (US Peace Corps) on request of government of Sri Lanka to develop English language speaking ability among students in difficult areas with the idea of making the economy of this country strong by building a work force with the capability of handling English language.

DELIC teacher training programme has been operated from 1960 decade till 90 decade rendering American volunteer English teacher’s service. As have agreed to give American volunteer teacher service again from 2020, will be starting from 30 teachers at the first stage and service of a group of teachers up to 150 teacher will be given to difficult area province students.

The selection of schools in various provinces has already commenced now. For two provinces Uva and Central will be given the service of these teachers and the service of each volunteer teachers is 2 years.

The consultant of education ministry Mr. H.M. Sirisena and Director of American Peace Corps Mr. Kris Besch along with officers of the English Unit of the Ministry and representatives of the American Embassy participated at the discussion.         

06 Aug 2019

The education ministry has taken steps to amend the Teacher Transfer Policy that is in operation since 2007 up to now.

Having fully considering the national service providing and provided by teachers extremely fair independent and transparent teacher transfer national policy should come in to operation, this programme is handled as per instructions given by education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam Attorney at law to the relevant divisions.

The education ministry also focused their attention to the fact that teacher transfer policy should be prepared in accordance with the other state sector transfer policies and the ministry is taken action to amend the teacher training policy in line with procedures and rules of public service commission as per the request made by the commission.

In making these amendments has discussed with the teacher unions and taken their expressions and views also in to consideration.     

02 Aug 2019

The education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has given the opportunity to all teachers who completed three years in National Schools to enter their children to the same school there serving.    

Accordingly 29^th   under the patronage of education minister at the education ministry the teachers who completed three years in a National School received the letter required to enter their child. 

In order to achieve efficient and a student friendly learning process teachers should have a good mentality when providing their service, most of the issues could be minimized when teachers are given the opportunity to admit their children to the same school which their employed, this decision can be a reason for a most child friendly and efficient mission /service the minister mentioned.   

National School teachers get the opportunity to enter their children to the same school

The education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has given the opportunity to all teachers who completed three years in National Schools to enter their children to the same school there serving.    

Accordingly 29^th   under the patronage of education minister at the education ministry the teachers who completed three years in a National School received the letter required to enter their child. 

In order to achieve efficient and a student friendly learning process teachers should have a good mentality when providing their service, most of the issues could be minimized when teachers are given the opportunity to admit their children to the same school which their employed, this decision can be a reason for a most child friendly and efficient mission /service the minister mentioned.   

National School teachers get the opportunity to enter their children to the same school

The education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has given the opportunity to all teachers who completed three years in National Schools to enter their children to the same school there serving.    

Accordingly 29^th   under the patronage of education minister at the education ministry the teachers who completed three years in a National School received the letter required to enter their child. 

In order to achieve efficient and a student friendly learning process teachers should have a good mentality when providing their service, most of the issues could be minimized when teachers are given the opportunity to admit their children to the same school which their employed, this decision can be a reason for a most child friendly and efficient mission /service the minister mentioned.   

08 Aug 2019

The education ministry has taken steps to give principals an international level training for school leadership to do a revolutionary change in the role of a principal of Sri Lanka.

According to Sri Lanka principals service minutes the capacity development programme required for promotions from grade 111 to grade 1, one month duration training programmme as capacity development programme is now being held for principals.

On the instructions of education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam national competency framework on school leadership and management has been introduced to the school system of this country for the first time. Accordingly thousand (1,000) grade 111 principals of principal service will be trained this year.

It has been emphasized of a requirement of a programme of this nature in an evaluation programme conducted in selected ten schools with regard to allegations framed time to time including financial frauds, administration issues, accidents faced by students in school. This special programme is implemented spending 41 million rupees based on the evaluations of the education sector development framework programme.

The principals will be educated about sixty four skills standards based on the quality school controlling, positive school administration controlling, effective school management and quality learning outcome.

The human resource development branch of ministry of education stated 3,823 grade 111 principals of all nine provinces to be given this training certificate before year 2021.  

06 Aug 2019

The education ministry has taken steps to give teaching appointments next month to 4286 teacher students enrolled by National Education Colleges for the academic year 2015/2017 based on results released on 1^st of August 2019 after successfully completion of three year course.

The education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has instructed officials of ministry to allocate a higher number of appointees to fill the teaching vacancies at National Schools.

The education ministry has obtained reports of Sinhala, Tamil and English teacher requirement/vacancies of all nine provinces to fill these appointments. According to these reports prevailing number of vacancies are 3,748. Having filled these requirement the rest will be directed to provincial schools of provincial councils.  

24 Jul 2019

The education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has instructed the Secretary of education ministry to create an internal procedure to grant technology workshop assistants to get term end school vacation/leave without any disturbance to school official work.

Accordingly the Secretary of education Mr. M. N. Ranasinghe has given the authority to Principals to approve term end school vacation/leave for national school technology workshop assistants and has given the instructions which are to be followed in writing. The Secretary of education states on the basis of calling for duty at any instance on the requirement of service leave may be approved for these officers.

The Secretary of education stated as the lab experiments will not be held during term end school vacation for technical college students Principal has the discretion of approving leave for these officers by creating an internal procedure without any interference to official work of the school.

08 Aug 2019

The education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has instructed the officers to take quick action to finalize the national school teacher transfers before commencement the first term of next year.

The teacher transfer unit of education ministry has received 6000 applications of national schools expecting transfers for the year 2020 by now.

This 6000 applications include about 2000 applications of teachers who had served in the same school for 10 years.

The necessary steps will be taken to do these transfers by appointing national school teacher transfer boards which represent teacher unions.

In 2017 transferring of teachers who served more than 10 years in the same school started on a decision taken by education minister Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam. The education minister took that decision to do teacher transfers annually as mentioned in the teacher transfer policy enabling any teacher to get the opportunity to serve in a national school. 12000 teachers have been given transfers that year. On that basis 5000 have been given transfers in 2018.

The teacher transfer unit pointed out annually since 2017 by 2020 there is a decrees in applications received from teachers served for 10 years in same school.