Teachers' unions and the Education Minister have locked horns once again. The kneejerk reaction of the Education Ministry to the teachers' sick note campaign was to declare Wednesday and Thursday school holidays. What the teachers have resorted to is the very antithesis of their advice to students–not to keep away from school on flimsy pretexts.

Teachers' salary anomalies have persisted for eleven years and their consternation is natural. But, having waited so long, they refused to grant the Ministry three weeks to sort out the mess. (Now they have set a new deadline for June 30.) Minister Susil Premajayantha, who did precious little about the problem for four years–in two stints–says he can solve it within weeks! School children have become the victims of the callous conduct of the two sides, one using them as a bludgeon and the other taking cover behind them. Do children need any other enemies?

Unsettled labour disputes are like abandoned anthills where venomous snakes find shelter. Anarchists masquerading as deliverers creep into protracted workers' struggles. Teachers who have let bankrupt ultra radical political elements hijack their cause are in the same predicament as a group of hostages aboard a jet piloted by Osama's boys. To those with a history of having blown away many teachers with galkatas and T-katas and driven hordes of students into mass graves, using them to further their diabolical interests is only child's play.

The time has finally come for the Education Minister to stop trotting out lame excuses and grasp the nettle. He must rectify the salary anomalies forthwith.

Meanwhile, let's have a brief look at teachers' report card. Statistics released by the Examinations Department in 2007 reveals that 51 per cent of the GCE (O/L) candidates failed the examination. Over 57 per cent of students failed in mathematics with 51.65 per cent and 63.18 per cent of students crashing in Science and English respectively. Most of those who passed the examination, it is said, had benefited from the kana shot answers or blind guesses in the MCQ papers!

Of those who failed in all the subjects, 4,128 were from the Colombo District with 3,404, 3,564, 704, 773, 2,039, 2056, 2,277 and 2,668 being reported from the Southern, Central, Northern, Eastern, North-Western, North-Central, Uva and Sabaragamuwa Provinces respectively. In 40 Pirivena institutes, not a single student passed the examination! All in all, 21,813 students crashed in all the subjects! None of the students in nine schools in Colombo qualified for the GCE (A/L). The National Education Commission (NEC) has, in a survey conducted with the participation of 4,054 students from 70 schools representing all provinces, except the North and the East, revealed that 18 per cent of the sixth graders cannot write at all. The NEC has found that 28 per cent of the tenth graders cannot write legibly and only 35 cent of them can take down a passage dictated to them. Of the sixth graders concerned, only 41 per cent are at a satisfactory level of performance.

In the GCE (A/L) classes in most schools, teachers idle and students are present due to the so-called 80-per-cent attendance requirement for sitting the examination.

The Minister ought to summon a meeting of teachers' union representatives and confront them on this score. They must be asked to pull up their socks before asking for better pay.

As for the anomaly dispute and the resultant teachers' protests at the expense of students–their sick note campaign and refusal to apply for the evaluation of GCE (A/L) answer scripts–the punishment, in our book, is to cane the cold-hearted pedagogues and flog the wavering Minister.

Let children's education take precedence over everything else!