After months-long fiasco over Z-score:

Warm welcome awaits biggest batch of students to Universities

By Ranil Wijayapala

For many youth who are aspiring higher positions in the society after perusing free education in Sri Lanka, the General Certificate of Education (Advanced Level) examination is a turning point in their life as it decide the future of their life. But for the 294,800 students sat for the GCE (A/L) examination in August 2011, had to test their patience as they had to wait for a long time to decide on their future.

Though they were waiting to enter the university education with their best performances at the examination, the dates were postponed day by day as their Advanced Level examination results subjected to changes repeatedly putting their future hopes in continuous jeopardy.

When exam results were subjected to changes whilst they were in favour of some students it dimmed the hopes for another set of students, dragging the entire process of university admission in to a dilemma.

Sometimes, high hopes of becoming doctors and engineers were shattered for some, when their Z-score were subjected to changes. Finally it ended in Court as everybody wanted justice to be carried out.

After a long agitations and campaigns and a long litigation process they are now at the final lap of entering the university education as the months long fiasco over the z-scores of the 2011 GCE (A/L) examination came to an end last Saturday when the University Grants Commission issued the cut off marks for different subject streams for the admission of the highest ever intake to the Sri Lanka universities for an academic year 2011/2012.

Therefore the students who sat for the GCE A/L examination in the year 2011 will get their long awaited opportunity to start their university education by the end of next month.

Though the admission of students to the universities was scheduled for October last year after providing leadership training program and also the English and IT training for the qualified students, now they are ready to commence their academic year five months behind the schedule due to the z-scores fiasco.

Accordingly 26,944 students, which include 5,182 additional students to universities, are expected to start their university education by the end of March this year although the universities are not properly equipped to cater that amount of students in a single academic year.

However, Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake on Thursday assured that his Ministry will take every possible steps to start the 2011/2012 academic year to facilitate education of these students.

"There may be congestion in the universities with the admission of these additional number of students to the already congested universities due to the increased number of students admitted to the universities since 2005 and it may trigger picketing and protest by the students, but the Government is doing its best to facilitate the education of these students", the Minister said.

He said the Government has allocated Rs. 4 billion for this year to improve the facilities at universities and the Cabinet has approved a proposal to have seven new buildings for five universities at this week's Cabinet meeting.

"We are already continuing discussions with a Singapore company to construct prefabricated buildings and once the evaluation of the proposal is completed universities will have the opportunity to construct the required facilities faster", he said.

According to Minister Dissanayake, different universities will adopt different mechanism to facilitate the admission of additional number of students to the universities by having lectures on different time schedules, by renting out new buildings and other facilities.

Minister Dissanayake said that the Universities in the North and East will face the most difficult situation due to the additional number of students admitted to the universities due to the limited facilities available in those universities.

"We discussed these matters in the past few months and the universities are now ready to face the situation", he said.

Dr. Priyantha Premakumara, Additional Secretary to the University Grants Commission explaining the mechanism adopted in deciding the number of students to the universities under new and old syllabuses said that they got the highest percentage of students under different subject streams from the year 2005 to 2010 when calculating the number of students to be admitted to the universities this year.

"We considered the highest percentage of students admitted to the universities from 2005 to 2010 when calculating the student admission under different subjects streams for the academic year 2011/2012 under both syllabuses", he said. Therefore, we gave the highest percentage of admissions under new syllabus and the old syllabus.

"When we are giving the highest percentage for each stream that will automatically exceed the 100 percentage. That is why we proposed to the Supreme Court that we will recruit 5,609 additional students to the universities.

But that number was calculated on the basis that practical tests for the arts stream students will not be conducted for this year. But practical tests had to be conducted this year too as Court gave us directions to conduct these practical tests this year too", he said. Therefore, the UGC could not find the required number of students who had passed the practical test to qualify for the university admission. We could not get the required number of additional students for university admissions from some districts in accordance with the undertaking the UGC gave the Courts, he said.

However, he said the UGC got the permission from the Courts through a motion to get the highest possible number under both the new and old syllabuses.

Accordingly, Dr. Premakumara said, 13,470 students under the new syllabus and 13,474 students under the old syllabus will get university admission for this academic year. "The total number of university admissions were shared equally under the new syllabus and the old syllabus", he said. According to the UGC statistics, 22,016 students for the academic year 2010/2011, 21,547 students for the academic year 2009/2010, 20,846 students for the academic year 2008/2009 and 20,069 students for the academic year 2007/2008 have been admitted to universities in the country.

For the academic year 2011/2012 the UGC will admit 1,315 students for Medicine (470 under new syllabus and 845 under old syllabus) 115 for Dental Surgery (44 under new syllabus and 71 under old syllabus) 146 for the Veterinary Science (55 under new syllabus and 91 under old syllabus), 84 for Engineering (EM) (39 under new syllabus and 45 under old syllabus) 87 for Engineering (38 under new syllabus and 49 under old syllabus) 4,000 for Management (2,713 under new syllabus and 1,287 under old syllabus) 445 for Law Faculty ( 319 under new syllabus and 126 under old syllabus) and 5,945 for Arts (3,491 under new syllabus and 2,454 under old syllabus) will be admitted to the universities.

Dr. Premakumra said that the number will further increase when students under special category and additional category are considered for university admissions. Chairperson of the University Grants Commission Prof. Kshanika Hirimburegama said that the UGC is now in the process of sending letters to the students to finalise the admission of students to the universities.

"We understand that many students are still having problems with regard to the university admission as some who were qualified for university entrance under earlier z-score are not qualified for the university entrance under the new z-score. If the students are having any problem we request the students to send their written submissions to us so that we can solve their problems. We are ready to discuss their problems as we consider this a special situation", Prof. Hirimburegama said.

Vice Chancellor of the Moratuwa University Prof. Ananda Jayawardhena and Vice Chancellor of the Uva-Wellassa University Prof. Ranjith Premalal said they are making some adjustments in their universities to accommodate more students for the academic year 2011/2012.