Govt. also issues circular amending govt. employees’ retirement age
After a long back-and-forth between education trade unions and the Government over anomalies in the salaries of teachers and principals, which saw schools closed, a series of protests taking place, and representatives from numerous other sectors joining the fray on the part of the education sector, the relevant circular to rectify these anomalies had been published by the Ministry of Public Services, Provincial Councils, and Local Government.The relevant communiqué, signed by Ministry Secretary J.J. Rathnasiri, was issued on Wednesday (5), effecting an amendment to Public Administration Circular 03/2016 to introduce salary scales for the teacher advisor service and to eliminate salary anomalies in the teachers’ and principals’ services.Thus, revisions are being made to the salary scales in the teacher service, the principal service, and the teacher educator service, in accordance with the decisions taken at the cabinet meetings held on 30 August 2021 and 3 January 2022. Accordingly, the salary revisions are effective from 1 January 2022.The circular had been issued with the approval of the National Salaries and Remuneration Commission and the Ministry of Finance.Meanwhile, the Ministry had also issued a circular extending the compulsory retirement age of government employees to 65 years with effect from 1 January 2022.Delivering his Budget Speech in November last year, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa announced that the Government plans to extend the retirement age of state sector employees to 65 years. Cabinet approval was granted to make the necessary amendment to the relevant Act on 3 January 2022. The amendment to Public Administration Circular 03/2016, which serves to rectify the anomalies in salaries between teachers and principals in the public education service has been in the works for the last three years. In 2018, the Education Ministry had submitted a proposal prepared in consultation with the trade unions to the then-Special Salaries and Remuneration Commission regarding the elimination of salary anomalies in the teacher-principal services.Accordingly, speaking at the weekly cabinet media briefing on Tuesday (4), Co-Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Ramesh Pathirana had said that cabinet approval had been granted to base the said proposal on the elimination of salary anomalies in the teacher-principal services. He further said that necessary monetary provisions for the resolution of salary anomalies had been made through the 2022 Budget proposal.“However, the teacher advisor service was not established at the time of preparing the relevant salary proposal in 2018. Therefore, the Cabinet approved the proposals made by Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardena to amend the Public Administration Circular 03/2016 to introduce salary scales for the said service, and to eliminate salary anomalies in the teacher-principal services,” he added.Following this statement, Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) General Secretary Joseph Stalin had charged that unless the relevant circular was issued and the teachers received the appropriate amount by 20 January, the relevant trade unions would launch “massive trade union action”. Thus, the issuance of the recent circular will serve to ensure the continued provision of education in schools, which are to resume in full from 10 January, as Director General of Health Services Dr. Asela Gunawardena on Wednesday (5) granted approval to the Education Ministry to normalise academic activities at all schools from Grade One to 13 starting from Monday.Nearly 30 teachers’ and principals’ trade unions attached to the Teachers’ and Principals’ Trade Union Alliance embarked on a number of trade union actions, including withdrawal from all physical and online teaching activities and examination-related duties, demanding a solution to the teacher-principal salary anomaly issue since 12 July 2021. However, following the Government’s announcement that the teachers’ and principals’ salaries will be increased from January, the trade unions suspended the said trade union actions until 20 January 2022.
