Akila fills schools with temporary staff?

The Ceylon Teachers' Union (CTU) charge that minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has recruited 353 temporary staff members to schools which includes 250 persons hailing from his electoral areas in Kurunegala.

CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin says that these recruitments have been made despite an excess of temporary staff already prevailing in national schools.

Noting that the annual budget allotted to the ministry is even insufficient to cover the prevailing shortcomings in the education sector, he added that the above move would mean more funds would be allocated as salaries rather than be used for the education of children.

He recalls that the minister had also backed the recruitment of 3,850 persons as sports advisors recently.

'Sri Lanka Mirror' learns that three females dressed in saris have started work as temporary staff at the Piliyandala Central College last week and they are residents of the Alawwa and Kuliyapitiya areas of Kurunegala district.

Meanwhile, a president of an old students' association at a Colombo school said that the lack of sanitary labourers is one of the worst issues faced by schools, and those who have been recruited as labourers by the minister are to be used for this purpose soon.