Prime Minister and Minister of Higher Education and Vocational Education Dr. Harini Amarasuriya is scheduled to meet representatives of the Education Graduate Association on Tuesday (May 26) over a long-running dispute about teacher recruitment, Ada Derana reported.
The talks centre on the failure to recruit graduates from the 2018/19 and 2019/20 academic years of state universities into the Sri Lanka Teacher Service. Under the Teacher Service Minute, the association says, education graduates should be appointed to Grade 2.2 of the service through a general interview and practical assessment — but the affected graduates have yet to be recruited, with no clear resolution offered to date.
A Cabinet decision issued on March 3 indicated the graduates would be recruited alongside the government’s wider programme to bring 23,000 teachers into the service. However, while the Prime Minister’s Office reportedly conveyed the decision to Provincial Councils, the councils said the communication did not specify a clear recruitment quota. The association further claims the councils have indicated these graduates cannot be accommodated within the existing 23,000-teacher drive.
The association said it previously raised the matter with the Prime Minister on February 10, 2026, making Tuesday’s discussion the second such engagement this year.
The impasse runs parallel to the government’s broader push to address chronic teacher shortages. Sri Lanka held an islandwide recruitment examination for more than 163,000 graduates on May 24, the first in over three years after legal challenges were resolved, while Amarasuriya has separately advanced higher-education reforms across the university sector.
