Only one paper at Grade Five examination

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

The percentage of students who scored more than 70 marks at the Grade five scholarship examination which was 39.4 percent in 2008 has increased to 78.96 this year.

According to the Education Ministry progress report presented to Parliament by Education Minister Bandula Gunawardane during the committee stage debate on his Ministry yesterday, he said that in order to ease the burden on students, instead of two question papers, it has been decided to have only one paper at the Grade Five Scholarship Examination from 2015.

The measures taken to prepare the question papers based on syllabuses and text book, teachers made aware of the manner in which students had answered questions in previous examinations and suspending supplementary classes and seminars one week before the examination have contributed to improve examination results.

Meanwhile, the percentage of the students who passed Mathematics at the GCE Ordinary Level examination has also increased from 44 percent in 2005 to 57 percent in 2013, the report said.

The Education Ministry has also been able to re-open 327 primary schools that were closed down by 2010 as a result of the systematic identification and development of the network of child-friendly primary schools linked to the 1,000 Mahindodaya secondary schools.

The 327 primary schools reopened include Northern Province (134), Eastern Province (71), Central Province (47), Uva Province (25), Sabaragamuwa Province (22), North Western Province (11), North Central Province (7), Southern Province (7) and Western Province (3).