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Supervisors, invigilators politically appointed misfits sans adequate knowledge, training
Failure to implement recommendations proposed by the Examination Advisory Committees and improper training for exam invigilators, have led to the increase in chaos at public examinations, causing additional stress to students, trade unions have charged.
Ceylon Teachers’ Union President Joseph Stalin said invigilators and supervisors are mostly political appointees who lack experience and knowledge.
He stressed that one of the main reasons the examination department continues to have problems at public examinations is because, hardly any attempt is made to implement the recommendations of the Advisory Committees.
“Although the Exams Dept affords its officials an Asian Development Bank sponsored postgraduate diploma in Australia, most officials don’t return to their jobs at the Exams Dept after completion of their diploma, but end up applying for principal appointments,” Mr Stalin said.
Mr Stalin added that proper criteria be followed when appointing exam invigilators. “We insist that the government take strict disciplinary action against those who act irresponsibly, as ineptitude at the Exams Dept only affects the students’ future” he said.
The most recent blunder in the conduct of a public exam was reported last week at the Year 5 scholarship exam, when supervisors and invigilators distributed question papers according to incorrect order of serial numbers
The sequence number is a security measure where the papers of absentees are set aside, so that all question papers are accounted for.
Fifteen minutes after the distribution of the question papers, the invigilators realising the sequence numbers were wrong, withdrew the question papers from the candidates and re-distributed it according to the correct serial numbers. However, by then, most of the students had answered some questions, while some of them had not got the papers they had answered. This confusion occurred in at least five exam centres viz Dharmashoka Vidyalaya, Ambalangoda and Amathigala Saliputra Vidyalaya, Galle. These kinds of carelessness of exam supervisors had demoralised the candidates, as the Grade 5 scholarship exam is highly competitive, said Ceylon Teachers’ Services Union General Secretary Mahinda Jayasinghe.
“When the exam supervisors re-distributed the papers, most of the students had answered almost 10 to 20 questions. If the invigilators had distributed the question papers according to incorrect sequence numbers, they could have easily forwarded a journal entry to the Exams Dept and cleared the issue, rather than severely inconveniencing the candidates,” he said.
Mr Jayasinghe added that similar problems at public exams have been reported at various instances before, as exams officials lack proper training. He pointed out that this time’s Grade 5 scholarship Mathematics question paper had three questions outside the syllabus. There were similar problems last year too. “This time, there was a question set on the Mattala airport. Even though the government calls it an international airport, locally and internationally, people do not recognise it as an international airport. This question is considered as being politically biased” he added.
“We urge the authorities to consider the mentality of those who set question papers, as they should be impartial.” he said. “In the recent past, there have been problems at the O/L and A/L exams too, and when they were pointed out by the various unions, the Exams Dept were at a loss to solve them due to their ignorance,” he said.
However, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena stated that minor complaints were received from five Grade 5 scholarship exam centres, and if students faced any inconvenience, they are requested to write to the Commissioner of Exams. “We will not allow any scholarship students to face injustice. There have been similar attempts to tarnish the image of the Exams Dept, which has ruined the trust that students have in exams” he said. He further said that, investigations have been conducted by the Criminal Investigations Department into this matter, and cooperation at zonal level is kindly requested.
The Grade 5 scholarship exam was conducted at 2,860 centres for 320,000 eligible candidates.
- Mirudhula Thambiah
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