Sept 27, Colombo: The government in response to the demand by the sticking university teachers, has decided to grant a pay raise to the academics from the 1st of October, the Ministry of Higher Education has said.

Secretary to the Ministry of Higher Education Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne has said that the salaries of university lecturers will be increased to 73 percent from 36 percent.

Accordingly, the basic salary of a senior professor will be increased from 57,795 to 63,100 rupees and with all allowances the salary will be 140,000 rupees.

The basic salary of a senior lecturer would be increased up to 45,545 and the gross salary would be over 98,000 rupees.

According to the Ministry this was the 4th salary increment given to the university teachers during one and half years. The government has increased salaries in the university sector four times since January of last year.

The Secretary pointed out that the current national income is only 14 percent and therefore, the proposal to allocate 6 percent of the income on education, is unreasonable.

The government reserves 12 percent of its overall gross national income on education. The allocations on higher education, which amounted 25 billion rupees last year, have been increased to 30 billion rupees for next year, the Secretary has disclosed.