80% attendance not compulsory for disaster-affected AL students : MoE
View(s):The Ministry of Education (MoE) will this week send reminders to last year’s flood-affected and landslide-affected schools that, they should not request for 80% attendance from GCE Advanced Level students to sit the exam. This move is consequent to complaints that some schools had demanded 80% attendance to sit the AL exam.
Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam said some schools had insisted on the 80% attendance and therefore, they will re-send the circulars to the Zonal Educational Directors and Principals, so that students are not inconvenienced. This week MP Buddhika Pathirana raised an issue in Parliament that some schools in the Matara District were demanding that students complete 80% attendance.
A large number of schools and children in the Galle, Matara, Ratnapura, Kalutara and Colombo Districts were affected by floods and landslides in May last year, with at least 45 children killed. Schools insist on 80% attendance as some students keep away from classes to attend private classes, before examinations. -DW