Give entrance to all students: UNP

By Uditha Jayasinghe

Adding a new chapter to the Z-score saga, the main Opposition is calling on the Government to accommodate both sets of students who obtained entrance into university.

Pointing out that the Government’s olive branch of allowing a percentage from the students who previously gained entrance into university as wholly unacceptable, the UNP insists that all of them should be allowed in.

UNP MP Akila Viraj Kariyawasam told the media that thousands of students were suffering great mental anguish due to being left out of university by the second set of results. He strongly called on the Education Ministry to release the exact method used to calculate the Z-scores, claiming there are instances when students with three As have not been given entrance while those with three Cs have.

“This is completely the fault of the Government. Now they are saying that they will take a percentage, but that is grossly unfair. We demand that the first set of students who received entrance be given their degrees in the same universities and in the same faculties,” he said.

Kariyawasam noted that students not selected under the second release of results are unprepared to write the exam and that third try people would not get that chance, creating an extremely biased situation. Recalling that during President J.R. Jayewardene’s regime there was a similar instance and the UNP created new faculties to allow students the chance to gain degrees, Kariyawasam charged that if the Government minimised wastage and corruption, it would find the money to fund the extra students.

He added that if a UNP Government came into power, the Z-score system would be abolished and a more transparent and effective system would be put in place. According to Kariyawasam, before the Z-score scheme was to be adopted, the UNP had called for a debate in Parliament, which had been ignored by the Government and subsequent questions had also been disregarded. He also called for the overhaul of the whole education system, insisting that the Government must depoliticise the education system and allow professionals to enter it. “We demand that the Government reduce wastage of resources and pump more money into the universities so that they can accommodate these students as well. The fault in calculating results lies with the Government and students cannot be allowed to pay the price,” he said.