Tuesday, September 4, 2012

It is now the Radiologists and the Teacher Librarians – they all need appointments and they are waiting for GODOT~



A few months earlier I mentioned the plight of the graduate physiotherapists who are still awaiting appointments to the Govt. Health Service as they have not been assigned a pay grade and are therefore in limbo. The Universities produce 60 graduates p.a in areas of need and they are not getting appointments due to the lack of decision makers willing to go out on a limb and give them a fair wage. A fare wage is one between what they are currently requesting and what is currently being paid to the Diploma Holders coming out of the School of Physiotherapy.

In the same vein, the Radiographers are also crying foul saying that at the behest of the new couses, they got degrees in the Allied Health Science Faculties of State Universities, this time from Peradeniya where over 80 await positions. It is a field with acute shortages, but find themselves without appointments. The School of Radiography is training diploma holders who continue to get appointments under the old scale. Due to the need of over 1000 in this field it is essential that both diploma and degree holders are recruited but at different pay scales to reflect their qualifications and knowledge. The problem is graduates do not like the diploma holders considering them inferior beings and wish those programs abolished, where as I believe there is a place currently for both until we can produce the annual requirement of degree holders, which is not in the near future!

The Education department is also faced with the same issue of Teacher Librarians who have got the qualifications but who do not have appointments as their grade is still not recognized. At present there is NO teacher librarian carder in the Department and so these people, who are qualified in a much needed area of teaching professional, end up as mere teachers and are accordingly disgruntled that their positions are not recognized as a separate category and salary scale.

What does all this mean? It simply means that there is no relationship between what the Universities have been asked to train and the Govt. health and education service to employ them. It is an elementary error that must be resolved equitably and these qualified people MUST be given appointments to carry out the much needed tasks in their respective sectors that will enhance both Health Care and Education in Sri Lanka.

The lack of direction or vision in the Government to consider the importance of these positions is a detriment to the desired objectives of the nation. It is time parliament is made aware of all these anomalies and action taken to resolve them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the govt feels that now these fellows have been educated they should go abroad and practice. The govt doesn't like educated chaps being around; they cause trouble. The uneducated masses; that's who the govt loves.