Stop playing with futures

Thursday, 29 December 2011 00:35 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

NUMBERS can decide the future, as was proved by the recent fiasco that erupted with the releasing of Advanced Level results. After enduring incredible mental stress, students and parents await the decision that will decide their lives. The responsibility of releasing correct and timely results is a weighty responsibility, which the authorities must take extremely seriously.

The Higher Education Minister’s reasoning is that pressure exerted by various quarters including highly influential authorities and others who expected to enrol students at overseas universities triggered the hasty release of the 2011 GCE Advanced Level results, which contributed to the ranking mess-up.

Minister Dissanayake said President Rajapaksa met him along with Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena and officials of both ministries on several occasions and raised questions about the delays in releasing the GCE Advanced Level results and instructed that the process be expedited.

Students who were looking forward to enrol themselves in foreign universities together with their parents wanted the results to be released promptly as the deadline for registration was approaching. This unwittingly appears to put the blame on ‘influential’ and ‘well-to-do students,’ which is unfair given the fact that students who have the chance to study abroad should not have their opportunities diminished due to incompetent authorities.

Moreover, in other years, results have been delayed at this time with no issues. If that could be done in previous years, the question that begs an answer is, what went wrong this year? Are the people to understand then that incorrect results are issued regularly, but this time it was caught because the unions became whistle blowers?

In 2002 the first batch of students sat for the A/Ls in April under the new syllabus because the Government wanted to implement a solution to this problem. It will be remembered that four subjects became three and the exam was advanced to April so that results would be released faster, giving the chance for students applying abroad to do so within the same year. Subsequently, exam dates were pushed down to the extent that they returned to August, nullifying the positives of the move. Surely the authorities are responsible for this?

The Minister has assured that the 2011 GCE Advanced Level results now available on the internet are correct but he has also said that he could not give a guarantee that there would not be a repetition of exam result mess-ups in future as it was a tedious and cumbersome job involving several State institutions, mainly the Examinations Department and the University Grants Commission (UGC) in addition to thousands of teachers and students.

In such a scenario, it is clear that unions have an added duty of acting responsibly and working with paper marking teachers and lectures to ensure that a right system is put in place to assure accuracy.

Given that the Minister has already admitted that it is impossible to avert future disasters, the time has come to evaluate the process and streamline it so that the next generation does not pay for official incompetence with their lives.