Students who offer English Literature at the GCE Ordinary Level are at the mercy of ignorant marking examiners. This is borne out in the results of the 2010 exam.
The story doing the rounds is that the 2010 English Literature answer scripts were marked by language teachers with no background in teaching literature. Their marking was based on given guidelines.
The present government is making a big noise about leading the way to better English. But everything the Departments of Education and Examinations are doing seem to be working towards the opposite effect.
As a retired teacher, I would like to see our young Sri Lankans marching forward confidently with a good command of English. It is sad to see that this is not happening.
Manel de Silva
Go back to the moon soon!
A ditty for Ban Ki
Ban Ki-Moon
Your exotic name
Tickles my Punny bone
When I say it backwards.
Man Ki-boon
You could be a monkey
With your tricky UN diplomacy.
But you are no boon
Ban Ki-Moon.
I have a hunch
you are a goon
from the Moon
hired to peddle
Human Rights
and meddle
in the affairs
of Lanka
a sovereign nation
on planet Earth.
Pray leave Lanka alone
To savour peace
After decades of terror.
Go back to the Moon
Sooooon
Man Ki-boon!
Chitra Premaratne-Stuiver,
Mount. Lavinia
Let us fight back hard, whatever the cost
I am unashamedly pro- American at a time when it is not a popular thing to say in the light of Ban-Ki-Moon’s unaceptable behaviour. But let me qualify this statement.. I am pro-American people, pro-American their wonderful educational generosity, pro-American their friendliness to strangers and pro-American their many traits of efficiency, punctuality and work ethic. I am not pro UN behaviour.
As a loyal Sri Lankan I am naturally very anti Ban-Ki-Moon and his ridiculous ‘panel’. My question is this. How strongly are we fighting back to discredit the unfair Report which in reality, has no proper UN sanction?
As citizens of Sri Lanka I think it would be correct to say that we do not care how much the Government spends on our defence abroad so long as we hire the best people to do it and the best firms to counter the excellent Diaspora propaganda.
Our attempts to defend our good name have so far have been unsuccessful, our Diplomats abroad have been singularly inept, the country smarts under a deep sense of injustice at the hands of biased UN officials and in general we feel helplessly resentful.The LTTE’s murderous behaviour during the 30 year conflict has not been adequately highlighted in places that matter. They were a group of ruthless killers. The American themselves said so at that time and only changed their stance just before Prabhakaran died. Unfortunately those LTTE cadres who committed those appalling killings are now dead.
Can we ever forget pictures of bodies laid out side by side (including babies and children) of entire villages massacred in the night by LTTE soldiers. There is no one left to take the blame. Ergo – there is no one left for the Human Rights Defenders to prosecute as far as LTTE offences and offenders go. The Tamil Diaspora is influential. They have VOTES in the USA, Canada and Europe. Naturally politicians who want their votes will not say anything harshly condemnatory of the LTTE even though they richly deserve it. Witness the British politician forced to take back what he said against the Diaspora just last week.
So let us mount a massive campaign against all these cover ups and outright lies of the foreign press and foreign politicians ( all of whom have vested interests). Let us hit back as strongly as possible against untruths spread by clever publicists of the Diaspora abroad. Let us ensure our little voice is also heard loud and clear. So let the Government spend the money and not one citizen will begrudge it.
We have a popular President. Let us all support him at this time when Sri Lanka is being so unfairly attacked.
(I still remain pro-American by the way.)
Goolbai Gunasekara,
Via e mail
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