President Ranil Wickremesinghe has expressed agreement to integrate school development officers into the teaching service.

Speaking during today’s (03) parliamentary session, Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha stated that the President has informed for the development officers currently serving in government schools to be recruited as teacher trainees and to integrate them into the teaching service.

The Education Minister further elaborated: “The President agreed that he would accept the inclusion of these 16,000 school development officers as trainees into the teaching profession, because this group has received training in schools for 5 years. So, they cannot be appointed to the government offices.”

“Now, we just have to give them the PGD (postgraduate diploma), train them and keep them within the schools”, he added.

Meanwhile, issuing a statement today, the Ministry of Education said that out of the 23,000 graduate development officers assigned for training in government schools in 2019, about 7,000 have already been recruited as teachers at the provincial level.

However, the ministry mentioned that the appointments of the remaining 16,000 school development officers have been delayed due to the cases being heard before the Supreme Court.

Furthermore, the statement highlighted that President Wickremesinghe has informed that he will take immediate steps to resolve this issue, and that this issue will be resolved soon and an announcement will be made regarding the same.