A ceremony was held at the auditorium of the Kalutara Zonal Education Office on December 3, 2021 to hand over appointment letters to 37 In-Service Advisors (ISAs)) of Kalutara Educational Zone. Kalutara Zonal Education Director, Ajith Wickramarachchi was the chief guest.
Zonal Education Director said, “That IASs have a key role of brainwashing teachers from whom a student can hurt due to a ‘wrong word’, expressed, when teaching in the classroom however, much the teacher is found a hard working honest and efficient staff member at a school.
“Teacher Advisors or better known as In-Service Advisors are the main coordinators who build up a link between the school and the Zonal Education Office (ZEO) and therefore ,when teachers encounter with any issue or difficult in connection with the Education office or a student an ISA is the very first person whom the teacher in question is used to contact and convey his or her grievance or the problem, therefore, I personally believe that an ISA is expected to play another role of a Counselor, though the ISA is really not professionally trained in counseling”, said Wickramarachchi.
The Zonal Director of Education, who has gained immense experience as an ISA, prior to step into the current post of Zonal Director, made an request to all the ISAs to make attempts to get the poor innocent children in Grade Five Classes to score at least 100 marks at the Grade 5 Scholarship Exam and again to get G.C.E O/L students to pass with at least six subjects and three passes thereby the talented students will proceed up with higher results so that nobody gets dropped at the School Education .
The Education Director said, “That he was much happy that the ISAs who had long been facing so many troubles, disturbances and many problems such as protest campaigns, work to rule campaigns, strikes and picketing had to be staged during the past to gain this historical moment of receiving the appointment letters as ISA, and kindly told them to work hard as usual for the benefit of the students, with now a good mental satisfaction and at the same time he expressed his displeasure about several ISAs who left the job for want of this appointment letters as permanent ISA, during the last few years.”
The event was organised by the Senior ISAs of the Kalutara Zone and Ajith Wickramarachchi who was the Chief Guest and Mrs. Ruvini Deepani (Asst. Director of Education) and Thilak De Silva (Dty. Director of Kalutara ZEO) and all Divisional Directors in the Kalutara Zone (Kalutara, Beruwala, Panadura and Dodangoda divisions) graced the occasion.
Deputy Director of Education (Admin.), Thilak de Silva, Asst. Director of Education (Development) Mrs. Ruvini Deepani, Senior ISAs, A.M K.P. Pieris, N.K. Uditha, Withana and Madu Amakara Ranaweera too expressed their views on the services of ISAs.