Science - Teachers Sri Lanka

Message of the Director General
The first curriculum revision for the new millennium is based on the elimination of the several
problems obtaining in the present education system. The present curriculum reforms have been
planned having identified the problems that youth face consequent to the weakening of their
thinking abilities, social abilities as well as personal abilities and step by step exploration of
factors leading to this situation, to overcome which, the necessary background was prepared.
Compared to the other countries in the Asian region, our country took the lead in education in
earlier years. But most countries in this region have superceded Sri Lanka in education today.
Some factors that influenced this deterioration are the action taken by educational institutions to
continue to take action to confirm the known, learn that which had been decided on earlier, and
reconstruct that which was, in the same form itself.
All these matters have been taken into consideration and the officers of the National Institute of
Education have endeavoured to prepare the new curriculum on the basis of a distinct philosophy.
The primary objective here is to change that which is known, explore that which is new and
develop that which is necessary for tomorrow and build up a generation of students who can
display their readiness for a successful future. But there is no need to reiterate, the need for a
visible change in the teacher’s role for the realization of this objective. In place of the obvious
transactional teacher role presenting in our classrooms so far, the Sri Lankan school teacher will
have to understand and conform to a student-centered, competency based and activity focused
transformational role.
It is our firm belief that this Teacher Instruction Manual will serve you as an aid to become an
effective teacher through the provision of numerous instructions that will help you adapt to the
new situation. Through the study of these instructions you will be provided the opportunity of
making your daily teaching as well as the evaluation task easy. There is no doubt that instructions
for student exploration and other quality inputs will help facilitate the teacher’s task. Similarly,
the Teacher Instruction Manual will help convey to school principals valuable information they
can use in time-tabling, sharing of limited resources and internal supervision.
My sincere thanks go to Dr. Mrs. I. L. Ginige, Assistant Director General (Curriculum
Development) Science & Technology Faculty of National Institute of Education for her direct
involvement in the preparation of this Teacher Instruction Manual that will serve an immense
purpose in the task performed at school level by the section above and also teacher educationist
involved in beginning or continuous teacher educational matters, in-service advisors as well as
officers at various levels, involved in external supervision plus monitoring programmes.
Professor J. W. Wickramasinghe
Director General
National Institute of Education
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