Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said yesterday that he is ready to go before the Committee appointed by the President to look into the blundering in the Advanced Level examination marks, but said that, to date, he has not been asked to appear before it.
“I am waiting to go before the Committee and place before it the information I have, but so far, I have not been asked to come,” Minister Gunawardena told reporters at a press briefing.
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| Education Minister Bandula Gunewardene at a news conference on Saturday |
Flanked by the newly appointed Commissioner of Examinations, W.M.N.J. Pushpakumara and the Secretary to the Ministry of Education, H.M. Gunasekera, Minister Gunawardena attempted to deflect criticism leveled at the education authorities by media reports on the re-correction process of answer scripts.
He said that, each year, thousands of students apply for re-correction, and the fee charged per paper is Rs 250, which will remain unchanged. In 2009, 89,503 applied for re-correction, and of these, 1,026 had their results changed, while in 2010, 63,257 applied for re-correction, and 989 had their results changed.
“There are reports that 80% of the students who sat for the Advanced Level exam in 2010, have applied for re-correction. We cannot say definitely how many have applied for re-correction at this time, because the deadline for applying for re-correction of papers has been extended to January 17,” he said.
The Minister said that the Examinations Department is not a profit-making institute, and has to incur a large amount of expenditure for the re-marking process.
He added that, any loss of credibility to the Examinations Department is damaging, as it conducts 364 exams a year, of which, 40 are foreign exams. “The Department functions independently, and even I have no access to it,’ he said.
The Minister said that nearly 1.5 million Advanced Level answer scripts are marked each year, involving more than 45,000 examiners. “In such a massive process, mistakes can take place, which is why students are given an opportunity to apply for re-marking, if they are dissatisfied with their marks,” he added.
Both the former Examinations Commissioner Anura Edirisinghe and the new Commissioner M.N.J. Pushpakumara have appeared before the Committee, which is expected to submit its report by the end of this week. |
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