It is good to know that ‘A’ Level students need sit for only three subjects.
I am writing with regard to the ‘O’ Levels. At the moment a child in Year 9 in 1997 will be sitting for the ‘O’ Level in December 1999 - and the ‘O’ Level questions will be from Year 9,10 & 11 _ three years work.
In the old days we were able to choose our subjects. Some studied ‘Arts’ subjects and some ‘Science’. Not so now. All children have to study all subjects whether they like it, have an aptitude for and interest in it or not.
One paper includes History and Social Studies - it includes History, Geography, Social Studies, Agriculture, Politics, Economics - practically everything under the sun regarding Sri Lanka. I honestly don’t know how a child is expected to keep all this information in his brain - unless of course he does absolutely nothing else but study from morning till night - which some children do nowadays.
Another subject is Science - a vast amount of information on Biology, Physics & Chemistry - all crammed into one subject.
The other subjects - all compulsory are - Language - very tough if Sinhala, Second Language, Religion, Mathematics which includes Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry, an Aesthetic subject- Music or Dancing or Art etc. & a technical subject - Radio Technology or Accounts or Agriculture etc.
I appeal to the Minister of Education to let the children of Year 9 now in 1997 - drop either Social Studies & History (one paper) or Science from Year 10 or their ‘O’ Levels in 1999.
Please let our children have back even a little bit of their childhood to relax and take an interest in other things.
The Sunday Times of June 15, on page 2, carried in good faith a brief account of this year’s Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition which included the following sentence:
“A special feature this year was the presence of a judge from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at the bard’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon.”
This piece of information, no doubt given to your paper by the organisers of the event, is somewhat misleading. According to their own printed programme, the person in question, Cyril Kegan Smith was “head of the production wardrobe” at the theatre in question. In other words, not an actor, nor a director, nor even a costume designer, but simply a wardrobe master - that backstage body who has to look after the actor’s costumes. No doubt this is a worthy and important job in the theatre world, but does it qualify a person to be a judge in a Shakespeare competition in which 50 per cent of the marks are supposed to be allotted for acting, inclusive of speech, characterisation and stage presence?
Would such a person have dared to judge a competition of this nature in his own country? And is it not a sad comment on the mentality of the organisers that they selected such a person to judge the cream of this country’s youthful acting talent in preference to the many English language scholars, writers, licentiates of speech and drama, performers and directors that we ourselves have produced?
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