Sri Lanka, Jan. 31 -- The decision by schoolteachers and principals to stage a strike demanding a pay hike of Rs 20,000, no doubt, will receive the harshest condemnation by all right-thinking citizens of this country. While before this the strikes were staged only by the teachers and principals, to win their demands, this time around they have gone one better and are planning to co-opt the parents and students too in the project. That they plan to stage the strike at the beginning of the new school term for the New Year demonstrates the contempt with which they are treating this once noble profession.

Parents should not allow themselves to be used in this fashion by teachers who are driven only by political motives, as could be seen by t...