Education Ministry adopts strategies to curtail failures

by Dulmin Samarasinghe.

Schools which are weak will be identified and special educational programs will be introduced to bring down the number of failures at the GCE (O/L) examination, says Additional Secretary, Planning and Performance Review of the Ministry of Education, S.U. Wijeratne.

Commenting on the 9444 students who failed all subjects in the 2013 GCE (O/L) examination, he said that this has resulted despite efforts taken by the Ministry by conducting seminars and workshops for subjects such as Mathematics and Science.

Schools which have shown weak examination results will be selected from each educational zone and the Director of that zone would be instructed to hold additional educational programs, to try and bring down the number of failures. Extra coaching would be provided to the six main subjects, this year. He said that the gradual decrease in the number of failures at present was due to the extra efforts by the teachers and the Ministry. He said that this number would be brought down further by next year.

Five thousand seven hundred and ninety students who sat for the GCE (O/L) examination last year obtained 9As (1.88%) in all subjects while 9444 (3.57%) students failed all the subjects. According to Education Minister Bandula Gunawardhana the number of students who failed the examination over the years, has come down. It has been 18997 in 2009, 14411 in 2010, 12975 in 2011 and 11100 in 2012.He said that the number of students who were successful in the examination has shown an increase over the years. It is 60.57% in 2010, 60.8% in 2011, 64.74% in 2012 and 66.67 in 2013.

The results show that an increased number of students have passed last year from Uva, Northern and the Eastern provinces. Uva province has recorded an increase of 63.06% from 59.63% in 2012, Northern province has gone up to 63.43% from 59.99% in 2012 and the Eastern province from 62.20% in 2012 to 65.43%. Minister Gunawardana said that his Ministry is aiming to increase the pass rate to 75% by 2016. Subjects such as Mathematics, Science and English are essential to pursue higher education and special attention would be paid to those subjects, he said.

Government provides training to state sector teachers to assure quality education to students but the private sector lacks this

initiative, says the Director General of National Institute of Education (NIE) Prof. Abeyrathne Bandara. The government is taking steps to introduce international training strategies and to adopt new technology with overseas help. NIE is discussing with the Malaya University, Kuala Lampur to find ways to provide quality education. It will also collaborate with the Kansai University in Japan to introduce new courses. The trade unions too seemed to be concerned

about the quality of education provided. He said that the present system do not facilitate the private sector teachers to become professionally qualified. Unfortunately facilities available at present are not fully geared to cope with the state sector teachers and hence the government finds it difficult to conduct programs for the private sector as well.