New Education System:

Selection of study streams brought forward

by Ananda KANNANGARA

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardane yesterday focussed special attention on major changes in the education system which will come into effect from January next year.

According to the new education system, students will have to choose their GCE (A/L) study stream at Grade Nine and not after the GCE (O/L) Examination as at present.

Minister Gunawardane told the Junior Observer that it is compulsory for students to complete six core subjects for the GCE (O/L) Examination from 2013.

The core subjects are the Mother Tongue (Sinhala/Tamil), the Second Language (English), Mathematics, Science, Social studies and Religion.

“According to the proposed education system, students will have to pass three optional subjects in relation to their chosen stream of study for the Advanced Level Examination”.

He said accordingly students who intend to do the GCE (A/L) in Commerce stream, should select Accounting, Economics and Business Studies.

Minister Gunawardane further said students who expect to sit for the Advanced Level Examination in the Science stream will be given a comprehensive knowledge of Chemistry, Physics and Biology at Grades Nine and Ten.

The Minister also emphasised the importance of studying English and Information Technology (IT) irrespective of the stream they select at the GCE (O/L) Examination, since 90 per cent of jobs currently available in the local and foreign employment market are for those who have excelled in these two subjects.

The Minister further said that a large percentage of students will be encouraged to follow Science and Commerce subjects from next year, considering the increasing employment opportunities in the future.

Meerkats recognise each other from their calls

Wild meerkats living in the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa recognise group members from their calls and behaviour ,researchers at the University of Zurich have established for the first time. The researchers assume that meerkats can tell the individual group members apart.

Recognising other individuals from their voices is second nature to humans. Certain primates also have this ability. Whether other mammals that live in social groups are also able to do so, however, is unclear. As with primates, vocal communication is vital for meerkats. They coordinate their activities with calls, such as to warn other group members of approaching predators, for instance, and thus stick together as a group.

Behaviour biologists from the University of Zurich have already managed to decipher many calls in meerkat communication.

Now, however, they have become the first to establish that meerkats are able to distinguish individual calls.

Behaviour biologists from the University of Zurich simulated the simultaneous presence of a group member in two different places in a novel playback experiment on wild meerkats in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa.

Meerkats were played two different calls from the same group member one after the other. This physically impossible scenario was contrasted with a physically possible scenario where the meerkats heard calls from two different group members. According to the researcher in charge, Simon Townsend, the meerkats responded more strongly to the impossible scenario than to calls from two different individuals. The scientists concluded that meerkats can tell the individual members of a group apart from their calls.

Meerkat colonies are highly organised and essentially divide their work into three roles: lookouts, hunters and babysitters. Until now, we had assumed that meerkats assigned their specific counterparts to these groups but do not differentiate them from one another. With this experiment, however, the behaviur biologists have proved this assumption wrong. -ScienceDaily

News in Brief

by Rohana JAYALAL

Validity of Postal ID for G.C.E exam

The postal ID for the G.C.E. Ordinary Level Examination will be only valid for candidates who were born after October 31,the Department of Examinations sources said.

The Department noted that the National Identity Card will be made compulsory for students who were born prior to this date.

Candidates who are to sit for the examination with the postal ID card need to forward certified copies of page numbers two and three of the ID to the chief invigilator.Commissioner General of Examinations, Anura Edirisinghe said. This needs to be handed over on the first day of the examination. The Commissioner General of Examinations added that the National Identity Card is mandatory for private candidates.

International award for currency notes

Central Bank of Sri Lanka(CBSL) has won an international award for its latest "currency note series" at an international competition organised by the International Association of Currency Affairs.

Accordingly, CBSL has won the 2011 Best New Banknote Series Finalist Award along with the Bank of Philippines. CBSL won the award for its latest currency note series issued under the title of "Development, Prosperity and Sri Lanka Dancers". The award was presented to De La Rue, a currency printer which operates a factory in Biyagama which had printed the latest version of the local currency notes on behalf of CBSL. The Award was presented during an IACA event held in Singapore, recently. Central Banks of nearly 17 countries took part in the competition while the Bank of Uganda won the first prize at the competition.

Bid to preserve vital documents

The Department of National Archives has requested the public to hand over documents of national importance that are in their possession for preservation. Director of the Department of National Archives,Dr. Saroja Wettasinghe said documents that are over 50 years and are of importance to both Sri Lanka and the world can be handed over to the department.

She said the documents should be originals. The documents, once preserved, will be displayed at the National Archives as private collections for posterity.