All FUTA got was what had already been agreed to earlier– it was just a face saving exercise to pretend otherwise!!

The power and the cunning of the Government was clear for all to see. Despite the advance notification of a joint press conference, FUTA backed out at the last minute citing that they needed to get the approval of its membership to hold it jointly. – BULL SHIT

So now the excuse is that in the interests of the public they decided to go back to work. The only concession was that they will be paid their back pay which has already been allocated by the Treasury, as long as they do catch up on the lost work these past months, and begin marking the A level papers immediately.

The Govt. is also facing a dilemma, as if they give the Academics what they want there are other Public Sector workers who feel their relative positions then are in jeopardy creating an unending cycle of agitation.

As for the 6% it is a non starter and will remain so until the whole structure of education is changed, not to reflect 6% in future, but to take steps to create a truly educated work force, with allocation on a need basis.

This union activity was a salutary lesson nevertheless to bring into the open the education debate in Sri Lanka warts and all. People are now talking writing and making suggestions almost daily in the Newspapers on how we can improve our education system. Further the debate is a talking point in all area of gossip be it in buses or living rooms and we can only feel for the poor students being put through the mess we call education, and now we have the urge to change the structure as best as we can, as soon as we can.

I am therefore hopeful that there will eventually be a positive outcome for students who are at the receiving end of the poor education standards, lack of facilities and archaic syllabi, and have to compete in the global market place. They must be equipped with the tools to compete with their peers all over the world and to come out on top. It is creditable that many private schools are achieving this target, and the public school system can only emulate it and learn from it. New teaching tools using the Internet are timely and far less costly and can be adopted without delay and huge expense. Let us therefore hope that the novel teaching and learning experiences take hold in Sri Lanka immediately casting away the fossils of education in favor of the contemporary style.