News
Standards falling, extra O/L classes in WP schools
Western Province school principals have been directed to take steps to ensure that their students obtain better results at the G.C.E. (Ordinary Level) examinations this year as projections show three other provinces might come out with better results, a senior official said yesterday.
Western Province Acting Education Director Wimal Gunaratne, said schools had been told to have additional classes of two and half hours for O/L students. The education authorities would meet principals to discuss ways of improving performance while the schools would have to submit reports of anticipated results.
The move to improve G.C.E O/L results in the Western Province comes as projections indicate that the North Western, Uva and Sabaragamuwa may have better results.
Last year’s O/L results in the Western province showed only a marginal improvement of 0.037 per cent compared to the 2012 results.“Going by rankings of the educational zones according to last year’s O/L results, the Homagama education zone was ranked 72nd out of 97 zones in the country. Colombo is ranked third in the country. The difference between Colombo rank and Homagama is too much. After investing heavily in infrastructure and teacher training we should get better rankings,” Mr. Gunaratne said. Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena represents the Homagama electorate.
The acting director said the aim of this programme was to ensure that all zones in the Western Province were ranked between 1 and 50 this year. “We have instructed principals to conduct classes from 6.30 to 7.30 in the morning and from 1.30 pm to 3.00 pm. They must also take steps to ensure no child skips classes (without valid reasons) and other children are not allowed to walk past O/L classes,” he said.
The acting director said the Western Province would have common test papers for the entire province for term tests this year unlike the normal practice of having zonal papers. “This way we could assess and improve the performance,” he said.