Education reforms to include skills/psychometric tests
View(s):Skills/Psychometric tests will be introduced for Grade 9 students from 2029 onwards, under the education sector reforms to be introduced by the government.
This tests will include assessment on literacy skills, numeracy skills and will be a career interest test to assess the tendency to pursue further studies in a specific field, Deputy Minister of Education Madura Seneviratne said.
The tests will guide students to areas in which their strengths lie and ensure they follow a career path which will be beneficial to them, he said.
This will be part of the government’s education sector reforms.
The main objectives are to enhance curriculum relevance and quality, improve learning outcomes, increase enrolment in science and technology streams, promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and citizenship education, foster 21st century skills, ensure equity and inclusivity, strengthen school-community relationships, align with national educational goals and promote an entrepreneurial mind-set.
Implementation of curriculum reforms from 2026 for Grades 1 and 6 will include classroom periods of 50 minutes with total school time extended by 30 minutes.
This change in time slots is to allow students more activity based engagement in classrooms, the deputy minister said.
There will be 5 compulsory subjects for the GCE Ordinary Level Examination, which includes the mother tongue (Sinhala/Tamil), English, mathematics, science and religion and value education.
Optional subjects include information and communication technology, history, civic education, health and physical education, technology, agriculture management technology, design and engineering technology, food and consumer technology, artistic product technology, aquatic bio-resources technology, geography, aesthetics education (oriental music, western music, carnatic music, dancing, bharatha natyam, arts drama and theatre) and entrepreneurship and financial literacy.
Students can pick any two of the optional subjects, he said.
In the GCE Advanced Level Examination, those who are in the science stream, for example, can also take subjects from other streams and vice versa, he said.
The first GCE (O/L) Examination under the new education reforms will be conducted in 2029, followed by the GCE (A/L) Examination.
From next month, the education ministry and related authorities will begin awareness programmes on the proposed reforms and listen to feedback, the deputy minister added.(DWI)
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