The lack of credibility of Sri Lanka School Examinations

As I walk down the road by the DS School on Gregory’s and I see the worried looks of the students just about to go into the class room to sit their respective A level tests, and then I open the news papers in the office a few minutes later and discover that yet another question paper has dubious credibility, I wonder if there is any credibility left in the SL examination system.

I don’t think that ever in the history of this country there has been such a degree of mess up in the education system. Soon after the Z score fiasco that has not been resolved as yet, and students who sat the A levels OVER A YEAR AGO wait to know even if they have been selected to get into University, I think it is right for all citizens of honorable intent to question the whole legitimacy of the Government that tumbles from one disaster to another. I do not want to go into the questions such as adulterated diesel, and just wish to concentrate on the education sector alone as that has produced sufficient doubt in the minds of our people, to severely call into question the whole structure of education in Sri Lanka.

Add to this the unemployability of many who go through the State Education Sector, and their loss of faith, is a problem that is boundless! Most people have little choice. Not many are able to send their kids to private education and overcome the hurdles of the state system. So the students who are wasting away, seeing their competitors in the private sector get ahead due to the speed with which they roll from A levels to courses, and graduate at age 21 when the students only enter Universities in the state sector at that age, are left wondering what has hit them.

The government appears to be quite unable to grasp the seriousness of this issue. When a country’s examination system, that all students expect to give them the entre into the world of tertiary education and beyond, is fraught with an unholy mess of credibility, hopes of youth have been dashed. It is the lifeline that young people have to improve their lives, as other avenues are not as well developed in Sri Lanka.

The time is ripe for a rethink of what the nation deems its duty to its citizens, namely the youth who hold the future of the nation in their hands. It is simply the word education that has to be re engineered to suit the modern day, and removed from bureaucratic and state clutches.