- Says 23,000 teachers recruitment impractical
A shortage of more than 50,000 teachers could hit the country’s national and Provincial schools by the end of this year (2026) as around 10,000 teachers are expected to retire after receiving the third installment of the salary increase granted through this year’s Budget, the Ceylon Teachers’ Union’s (CTU) President Priyantha Fernando said, warning that the Government’s claim that 23,000 teachers would be recruited through the recently-held competitive examination is completely impractical as the answer scripts of the examination had not even been evaluated yet.
Speaking to The Daily Morning, he said that there are currently over 40,000 teacher vacancies in national and Provincial schools, with the largest shortages reported in the Eastern, North-Central (NC), Uva and Northern Provinces. He said that national schools are also facing a serious shortage of teachers and that the situation is likely to become worse by the end of the year. “By 31 December, teachers will receive the third installment of the salary increase given through the Budget. Once they receive that, around 10,000 teachers are likely to retire. Normally, around 7,000 teachers retire each year, but this year, that number could increase by another 3,000. Given the situation that we are facing, the teacher shortage could exceed 50,000 by the end of this year,” he said.
He said that the Government had held a competitive examination in June to recruit 23,000 teachers, with 173,000 graduates applying for the examination and 163,000 actually sitting for it. However, the answer scripts had still not even been taken up for evaluation, he said. “The examination was conducted by the Examinations Department. Until the evaluation of the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced Level (A/L) Examination answer scripts is completed, the Department does not give priority to other examinations. The evaluation of the A/L answer scripts will only be completed by the end of next month (November). They will only be able to start evaluating teacher examination answer scripts in early December,” Fernando said. He further said that the GCE Ordinary Level (O/L) Examination would also have to be conducted during this period, making it even more difficult to complete the teacher recruitment process within this year. “The O/L Examination is also being held. Even if they start evaluating the answer scripts in early December, it will take until the end of December to release the results. So, how can the Government recruit 23,000 teachers this year?” he queried.
He added that the Government would also have to conduct interviews with 69,000 candidates if it is to recruit 23,000 teachers under the accepted recruitment procedure. “If we are going to recruit 23,000 teachers, 69,000 people have to be called for interviews under the accepted procedure. It will take more than a month to interview such a large number of people. Therefore, this recruitment cannot be carried out at least until March of next year (2027).”
Fernando also questioned whether the Government had allocated money in the 2026 Budget for the recruitment of 23,000 teachers. “When are these 23,000 teachers going to be recruited? Has money been allocated in the 2026 Budget to recruit these 23,000 teachers? No such money has not been allocated. But, the Government is misleading graduates by saying that 23,000 teachers will be recruited this year. They are not telling them that money has not been allocated for this. This recruitment cannot be done in 2026 under any circumstances.”
Education Ministry Secretary Nalaka Kaluwewa was unavailable for comment.
Information provided by the Ministry in response to a recent Right to Information request submitted by The Daily Morning showed that there were 40,185 teacher vacancies as at 31 December of last year (2025), including 978 vacancies in national schools and 39,207 in Provincial schools. The Ministry’s response, dated 15 September 2026, also showed that only 425 teachers had been recruited to national schools during 2026 up to the date of the response, with no teachers recruited to Provincial schools. Of the 978 vacancies in national schools, 693 were in Sinhala-medium schools, 18 in Tamil-medium schools and 267 in English-medium schools. The Central Province had the highest number of Provincial school vacancies at 6,961, followed by the Western Province with 5,153 and the Eastern Province with 4,755. The North-Western Province had 4,413 vacancies, Sabaragamuwa 3,994, the Northern Province 3,866, Uva 3,852, the NC Province 3,157 and the Southern Province 3,056. The Northern Province had 3,760 Tamil-medium vacancies, making up most of its total of 3,866.
Meanwhile, the Subcommittee on the Shortage of Physical Resources in Schools discussed the progress of the General Education Modernisation Programme implemented by the Ministry. The Subcommittee, appointed by the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education, to investigate the shortage of physical resources in schools, considered these matters at a meeting held recently in Parliament under the Chairpersonship of Samanmali Gunasinghe. The programme is being implemented with the assistance of the World Bank. The Subcommittee further emphasised the need to take necessary measures to address the requirements relating to sanitary facilities and drinking water facilities in schools, particularly to ensure the quality and safety of drinking water. The Subcommittee also conducted an extensive review of the progress of the programme to provide telecommunication facilities to schools, as well as the progress of programmes to establish model primary schools.