There won’t be children in classrooms in five years time: Education Minister

20 June 2024 11:19 am Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 24 Bookmark

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By Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana

Parliament, June 20 (Daily Mirror)- There won't be children left in classrooms in five years time as they are going to end up in tuition classes, Education Minister Susil Premajayantha told Parliament today.

He said there will be a surplus of teachers compared to children.

"Parents spend more than Rs. 800 billion as tuition fees for their children," he also revealed.

Comments - 24

Rip Winkle Thursday, 20 June 2024 11:35 AM

You won't be around in few months time.

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Ron Thursday, 20 June 2024 11:56 AM

Our education system been effected due to private practices schools have very little or no impact for childrens education teachers are far too busy getting privet teachings due to second income that give massive benifit financially its not rocket science intair education system need proper macanisam and reforms ......good old days no technology but schools provide fantastic education for children now days money money

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leo Thursday, 20 June 2024 12:00 PM

Then the solution is to improve teaching standards in schools. Growing proportion of teachers focus mainly on their tuition classes. Rules and systems should be brought in to stop this. Teachers should undergo regular appraisals and student feedback on their teaching. Vocational subjects should be taught at school. Children spend a lot of time idling at schools. They should be kept busy

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Truth : Focus on academic qualifications and NOT teacher training qualifications Thursday, 20 June 2024 12:28 PM

No private Tutors have any teacher training qualifications but they have proper university academic qualifications in the subjects they tutor .Coupled with their natural flair for teaching and good academic qualifications the Private Tutors are infinitely better than school teachers.

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Lionel Thursday, 20 June 2024 12:32 PM

Finally a Minister said the truth. Look at Youtube today and it is full of tuition masters beating their band waggon. They even invite parents to their classes to give debriefings and this has become hilarious. They are the schools now, not normal schools. They cover the whole syllabus just for the exam, and charge good fees. Surprisingly, parents don't say a word and happily pay their fees. I know many students do not go to schools and instead, full time go to tuition classes. Having lived and worked in a few developed counties, I have never seen that system in any country. Sad part is these students do not develop any other skills and only good at passing exams. I have equally seen them, after getting a SL degree, and migrating, truggle to get a job in developed countries as they do not have well rounded skills demanded there and cant compete with local graduates in those countries. Lack of English proficiency is another . SL education system is a joke.

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Citizen Thursday, 20 June 2024 12:35 PM

So education ministers successfully accomplished destroying government education system and standards, no point complaining, come up with solution, that is why ministers are appointed for position, not for complaining. Which minster came up with the solutions for the problems and successfully solved it.

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Reformist Thursday, 20 June 2024 12:39 PM

Not in five years, it is already happening now dude. Wonder why parents try to put their children to schools. The country is full of tuition masters boasting about who got the AL OL ranks from their classes. Enormous amount of money they earn. This is going from bad to worse. They even come to TV stations to broadcast their achievements. It is called private education by stealth. SL people never protest against tution classes. Happy to pay the fees. Where are the schools? Does SL need them?

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Concerned Thursday, 20 June 2024 12:48 PM

Teachers should sign a contract that they will not engage in any type of employment similar to their current employment outside the school as long as they are employed by the government. If this is made legal and not abided by disciplinary action can come into force. Private sector establishments have a clause to this nature when employment is offered. By doing so private tuition can be curtailed

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Yoha Thursday, 20 June 2024 01:06 PM

International schools does not allow teachers to give tuition for students from same school. This should be done to government sector teachers too but if you look carefully majority of tuition masters are not teaching at government schools as tuition is more financially beneficial for them.

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Man Thursday, 20 June 2024 01:22 PM

No. By improving the standards of school teachers and by filling vacancies of teachers.

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Chros Thursday, 20 June 2024 01:06 PM

Are you under a rock? If you are on the roads after 2pm and on weekends you will see thousands of children on the roads going for tuition classes. There are others on zoom. Shows how terrible the teaching in schools is when teachers blatantly ask kids to attend their classes. As someone mentioned above, none of the political parties have addressed this. This is not free education it is taxing the people twice.

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Yohan Thursday, 20 June 2024 01:11 PM

Birth rate is going down rapidly. So the demand for government schools will go down. Also you can see more and more parents sending children to international schools or private schools that follow gov syllabus in english medium. I think the latter is a good option for the country too. Government should encourage pvt schools so that less burden for government sector. This way government can focus on school in rural areas and focus on children of low income families.

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Student will suffer till you learn your job Thursday, 20 June 2024 01:27 PM

You are appointed as minister to manage a ministry. You are not expected to sound a doomsday prediction. First learn what is ailing the department, then find out who are the culprits, ten seek solution. In the meantime children will suffer.

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Anthony Perera Thursday, 20 June 2024 02:04 PM

Not a single comment on the poor salaries our public school educators receive. It's basic economics. The opportunity costs of being a teacher (both public and majority of the private / semi government) is greater than that of being a private tutor. Therefore teachers pay less attention to being "teachers" at schools , and divert their energies into private tuition - where they can make a living. Since 1948, as a nation we have never invested in public schools (infrastructure, management, maintenance, teaching and curriculum). Now the chickens have come home to roost. Pay the teachers! Sri Lankans have gotten their morals and values not through philosophy or humanism, but via religion, victorian era "principles" and other human impediments, that have caused the moral bankruptcy of the citizen. Self responsibility and the greater responsibility to society has never been present in this country. Look how we drive and attitudes toward garbage disposal! 5th world mindset.

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Sanjaya issanayaka Thursday, 20 June 2024 02:28 PM

that's because education ministry does not keep the standard when appointing teachers.teachers ask children to come to there tuition class

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Nimal Thursday, 20 June 2024 02:37 PM

SL schools simply do not have quality teachers to teach. Private tuition classes are done by professionals who are very qualified. For example, most STEM subjects in tuition classes are taught by engineers who never ever will go to schools to teach as a job. So there is a huge difference in knowledge. School teachers are no match to them and they are wasting their time trying to teach these difficult subjects. They simply have no brain power to match engineers or other tuition professionals who are at a different intellectual level. That is the reality. Teaching can never attract them for a monthly salary of Rs 50,000.

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Seeya Thursday, 20 June 2024 02:43 PM

The biggest problem here is children will not be able to get the lessons that you learn in a classroom, things like unity, sharing, being punished for the wrong doings and earning from them. Do you think private tuition classes teach these? They are result driven, they dont have time to follow up on the kids they run the race. Its is saddening to see how the educational system in the country is going down daily. We have been lucky to be taught by very kind and wise teachers in our life and feel sorry for the kids nowadays.

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Ram Thursday, 20 June 2024 02:59 PM

In five years time some part of our Education Budget too will be available to the robber politicians

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Cherath Thursday, 20 June 2024 03:19 PM

Tuition is a business to earn the maximum amount of money. School curricula need to be carefully designed to fit the level of class and the time frame. This will avoid the often complained insufficiency of time to complete the syllabus. The teachers ought to be put through regular trials and tests to ascertain their level of competence for the subjects and the level of exams they teach pupils. The above measures will take care of the Tuition racketeers standard publicity stunt of 'we will guarantee the completion of the syllabus and a good pass'. Tuition has taken over SL like a virus and no action means it will devour our schooling system. Until the 1970, 80s there were no tuition classes except for ballet and playing the piano or guitar and we produced thousands of successful students at all level to university, as does all the overseas students even now.

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Cherath Thursday, 20 June 2024 03:27 PM

By continuing to allow the Tuition business to flourish, what is more than certain is that the Sri Lankan society will split even further as have and the have nots, as the children who cannot afford arbitrary sky high tuition fees will give up studies. Unfortunately, these will include children who are naturally gifted.

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Guest Thursday, 20 June 2024 04:28 PM

1. Where is the Maharagama Teachers training school. How are teachers evaluated. 2. Pay the teachers a better salary so that they do not have to seek ,money outside. 3. This problem had been there through a long time. I left school in 1962 to enter the University. I can very confidentaly say that I was taught properly only by two teachers.

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MADUMULLA Thursday, 20 June 2024 05:07 PM

the whole RAJAPAKSA FAMILY must be educated, atleat to the g.c.e. o.l.standard

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An Educator Thursday, 20 June 2024 06:02 PM

Follow the Singapore model of hiring teachers, the USA model for student support and success, and Finland for educational reforms. Without having an educational model you will not be able to fix this broken system which has never benefitted Sri Lankan students for generations.

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Parents Thursday, 20 June 2024 09:23 PM

Is it only now you opened your eyes to the reality of the so-called education system in Sri Lanka???!! How very pathetic indeed! By the time you start digitising schools, there won't be any students. Before you start digitising, make sure that students behave respectably both in school and outside school. Using raw filth to address each other has become the norm nowadays. Those who don't, are being bullied and called gay or mama's boys!! In public transport, in shops, almost everywhere, not forgetting inside the school itself, they behave like complete hooligans! It looks like teachers and principals are scared of these rowdies. What deep shit our education system has fallen in to!! Ban ALL tuition classes!!! That is where ALL evil starts with drugs, love affairs, fights, use of filth etc eyc. If teachers actually teach in schools, there's absolutely no need for a child to go to tuition, most often, to the same teacher from school!! It's disgusting!

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