Teachers’ union plans protest to press students’ right to sit national exams
The Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) will carry out a campaign to protest against what it calls discriminatory practices adopted by some Central Province schools with regard to allowing students to sit national examinations and admitting new students.
General secretary Joseph Stalin said parents too will join trade unions representing teachers and principals from the province to highlight the injustices caused to students who were denied their right to sit the grade 5 scholarship examination and the ordinary level examination after they were assessed and labelled as weak students.
He said these schools adopted the discriminatory practice to boost their image and claim with a sense of pride that they had a high percentage of pass marks at national exams. It is learnt that these schools have prevented several students from sitting next month’s GCE Ordinary Level examination on the basis they had not performed well at the withdrawal test or the term tests.
The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has initiated an inquiry following media reports which said some 40 Central Province students had been prevented from sitting the GCE O/L exams.The CTU has also filed a supporting petition with the HRCSL. The inquiry will be held on Tuesday and the aggrieved students and their parents have been invited to attend it.
Mr. Stalin said a Haputale school had prevented 20 students from sitting the O/L exams. He said that, apart from adopting such shocking measures, some schools demanded colossal sum of money to admit children from primary schools, which have classes only upto Grade 5. He said that the applications of seven children from a primary school in Brookside Estate had been rejected by a big school in the same area because their parents could not pay the donation the school administrated had demandtion.
The union leader said most school administrators were focused on improving the school infrastructure rather than improving the quality of education. “By constructing buildings, probably they line their own pockets in the form of commissions,” Mr. Stalin said.
The CTU called on school administrators to stop such practices and adopt principled policies to treat all students as equals. “This attitude among educators have to stop and the mass protest campaign we are planning is aimed at ending these injustices caused to students,” he said. (CC)