The Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education has issued a clarification regarding concerns over the number of applicants shortlisted for interviews following the competitive examination held to recruit teachers for Sinhala, Tamil and English-medium vacancies in national and provincial schools.

In a statement, Additional Secretary A.J.S.S. Edirisooriya said approval had been obtained to fill 23,600 teaching vacancies. Under the Teacher Service Minute, twice the number of available vacancies—46,012 applicants—should be called for interviews.

The clarification follows concerns raised after the initial list published for the interviews contained the names of only 17,688 applicants.

According to the Ministry, the lower figure does not necessarily indicate that the required number of candidates has not been covered, as individual applicants may have qualified for multiple subjects and positions in both national and provincial schools.

The Ministry explained that the number of applicants must therefore be assessed according to subject categories and the vacancies each eligible candidate can cover, rather than by simply counting the names on the list.

As an example, the Education Ministry noted that 192 graduates already employed in the public service under the limited recruitment scheme, who had qualified in all eight subjects, could collectively cover 1,536 vacancies.

It added that applicants qualifying for multiple subjects and positions at both national and provincial levels had helped meet the requirement to call twice the number of candidates as there were vacancies.

However, some vacancies remain unfilled because of a shortage of qualified applicants in certain subject combinations.

The Ministry disclosed that no applicants had qualified for 41 subject combinations across the provinces, while another 124 combinations did not have a sufficient number of eligible candidates.

Despite these shortages, the Education Ministry stated that, after accounting for all relevant subject combinations and overlapping qualifications, approximately 46,018 applicants had qualified for the interview process.