- Token teachers’ strike when schools reopen
In the wake of the Ministry of Education reiterating there will be no change to the decision to extend school hours until 2 p.m. from January of next year (2026), the Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) stated they will under no circumstance agree to the proposed move.
Speaking to The Daily Morning, CTU President Priyantha Fernando said that when schools reopen after the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (A/L) Examination, teachers would go on a one-day strike in protest. “We ask the Government to withdraw this immediately. This is not a decision based on any psychological or educational study. Therefore, the decision to extend school hours until 2 p.m. should be immediately withdrawn.”
He also said that while the CTU would not agree to this proposal for any reason, it is however willing to hold discussions with the authorities. “If this is not withdrawn, we will take a series of union actions. However, we are ready to have discussions with the ministry,” he said.
The CTU’s statement comes in response to Ministry Secretary Nalaka Kaluwewa’s recent remarks that the ministry is only implementing reforms designed by the National Institute of Education (NIE), which has the technical expertise in the area.
“The NIE is planning how these reforms should be. They are the experts and they have the technical role in it. What we are doing is implementing it,” Kaluwewa said, adding that the NIE had initially proposed extending a school period to one hour, but that the Ministry had requested it to be reduced to 50 minutes for practical reasons. He said that if each period is 50 minutes long, school hours must be extended until 2 p.m. Under the proposed reforms, which are scheduled to take effect in 2026, school hours will be extended from 7.30 a.m. to 2 p.m., an increase of 30 minutes from the current closing time of 1.30 p.m. The revised schedule aims to improve the learning environment by introducing longer 50-minute periods and compensating for lost academic time from past disruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic.