Education Ministry keen on reopening O/L classes in the Western Province
The Education Ministry has requested the Health Services Director General to provide guidelines to reopen classes for G.C.E. (O/L) for students in the Western Province.
The objective would be to open the classes for O/L students in the Western Province from January 25 onwards, a senior Education Ministry official said.
He said under the proposed plans the Government was planning to conduct the O/L exams earlier scheduled for 2020 in March 2021.
“If we are able to reopen classes for them by January 25 we will be able to complete the classes which they have missed out last year,” he added.
He said there was no possibility of postponing the exam again as the students need to proceed to the A/L classes.
“If the exams are held in March the results would be released in September and they will be able to start A/L classes soon,” he said.
He also said through surveys conducted, the Ministry has so far been able to ascertain the details of syllabuses covered by schools. Therefore by reopening the classes soon the respective schools would be able to complete syllabuses to prepare the students for the O/L exams.
“The parents and students also need to understand the need to resume classes for O/L students as it would have an impact on other exams as well,” he said.
He said, considering the events of the past three years there had been a serious impact on the students who had been preparing for the grade five scholarship, O/L and A/L exams, as classes were first disrupted due to the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019, and then closed due to COVID-19 last year. This year too educational activities had been affected again, he said.
Meanwhile, Western Province Senior Deputy IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon had assured that sanitisation of Western Province schools could begin this weekend. Under the programme 884 schools were to be sanitised.