Bandula’s proposal – prevent seminars and tuition classes for Shishyatvaya, O and A levels for a week prior to exams! – What a silly billy dimwit? He is one

ALL PAPERS THIS MORNING, NAMELY THE SINHALA ONES CARRIED THE ABOVE STORY

This is an example of the typical reaction of Govt. spokesmen when confronted with a problem. Do away with the solution by removing not the root cause, but the water and fertilizer that helps plants grow. So when exam papers leaked 48 hours before exams, he thinks that the handful of  leaks can be stopped by taking away tuition rights of 100% of the pupils. What a sledgehammer to break a nut!

Thinking in such an elitist manner can only come from people who have let power go to their heads. The majority in this country are of average means doing everything possible to get their kids through exams, by incredible sacrifice. Those who go to classes are the less well off who forego their meals (I have personal experience of this in my areas) so they can send their child to tuition, because the school teacher DOES NOT give them the basics for which he or she is paid but rather encourages the students to firm up their knowledge by attending tuition, sometime their own evening classes.

The cramming and seminars that take place in the last week sometimes is ALL some parents can afford. Others who go to tuition classes attend mass classes, and still others who are too poor to get tuition, are helped by organizations holding free seminars in the last few days prior to the exams to help the less well off. In fact our organization was also planning to do this shortly for the O levels for students in poor areas who have NO access to tuition, by hiring a hall, and getting a tuition master of repute to give a class on his specialist subject to the students on exam technique. This is usually done just prior to exams, in case a reader thinks it can all be done in sufficient time, so that the student has the last week to study at home!

Also do remember that wealthier students can have one-on-one tuition at home and are really not covered under this clause or will not be enforceable for them as they do this at home. Those who have access to homes and such facilities can circumvent this rule by holding their classes in homes out of sight of the authorities. It is therefore clear that this is a rule that helps the wealthy to relatively benefit more than those less well off, who will be prevented from a last minute surge to their possibility in doing better at the exam.

Let us rid this country of such bumptious dimwits who keep making pronouncements which they believe will solve their shortcomings, while the real people who are adversely affected by these ridiculous dictates have to suffer in silence. Let us not permit this sort of callous behavior on the part of the Govt.