• Says approval only to recruit 6k not 23k, 7k-8k to retire in Dec., shortage is 40k+

Alleging that official claims of recruiting 23,000 teachers in 2026 are not accurate, the Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) stated that approvals have been granted to recruit only about 6,000 teachers, despite the country currently facing a shortage of more than 40,000 teachers.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, the CTU President Priyantha Fernando said that there is no practical plan in place to resolve the crisis. “The authorities are saying that 23,000 teachers will be recruited this year. But, based on the approvals that have actually been issued, a maximum of only around 6,000 teachers will be recruited,” he said. He said that they reviewed approvals granted to Provincial Councils (PCs) for teacher recruitment, adding that approvals have been given to recruit around 600 teachers per PC, while for the Northern and Eastern Provinces, the approved number is about 400 per Council. “When these figures are added together, the total comes to only about 6,000,” he claimed.

Fernando further pointed out the number of new recruits would not even compensate for annual retirements. On average, he said that between 7,000 and 8,000 teachers retire each year, and a similar number are expected to retire by December 2026. “Looking at these figures, the number of teachers being recruited this year is lower than the number of teachers who will retire. In that situation, how can the teacher shortage be resolved?”

The Education Ministry Secretary, Nalaka Kaluwewa said earlier that the large-scale national recruitment of graduate teachers was not possible due to ongoing court proceedings. He added that teacher recruitment was therefore being carried out at the PC Level. “Each PC follows its own process for hiring teachers and makes the necessary decisions accordingly. We are hopeful that Provincial-level recruitment will help minimise the teacher shortage,” he said.