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Holding national exams: Students ready to face tests

15 Jan 2022

 
  • Do not want to waste any more time: Students
  • No change in exam dates: Education Ministry
  • Confident teachers have prepared students: GTASL
By Sarah Hannan At long last, the national exams for Grade 5, GCE O/L, and GCE A/L are to be held as scheduled, which will bring much relief to students facing the exams.  Like anyone preparing to sit for an exam, students may be riddled with doubts on whether they will be able to successfully face the exam. However, it is evident that the majority of the students are eager to face their milestone exams and move to the next stage in their education, or, in the case of GCE A/L students, hopeful of securing employment or pursuing their tertiary studies. According to the Department of Examinations, the exams are scheduled to kick off with the Grade 5 scholarship exam next Saturday (22 January), followed by the GCE A/L exam from 7 February through 5 March, finishing off with the GCE O/L exam from Monday 23 May through Wednesday 1 June. So what do the students feel about the upcoming exams? How confident is the Ministry of Education about the syllabus coverage? And what do the teachers have to say? The Sunday Morning spoke to all three groups to find out. Student concerns Voicing her opinion, Amanda Oshadi, a student from Diyatalawa noted: “Had we faced the examination as scheduled in August 2021, by now we could have gotten our exam results as well. Not all students are looking at entering universities. I want this exam to be done with, so I can move on with my life and secure a job. I understand that all of us are scared and stressed about how well we will be able to answer the questions. We still have four weeks ahead, so let’s make the best use of the time at hand and practice to answer at least one question per day for each subject.” Kavi Indeewari, a student from Ratnapura, echoed similar sentiments: “The exams were shifted to be held between October/November 2021 and it has once again been shifted to February. We had another three months to prepare for the exam. I don’t see the difference another additional month will make for anyone who didn’t make use of these extended months to study for the exam.” Given that Covid-19 is still present and infections are being reported in the range of 500-600 per day, Roshel Fernando, a resident of Kegalle attending a school in Colombo, raised her concerns: “I travel to school from Kegalle. People are still getting infected with the virus. Many of us are worried that we can catch the virus while we take public transport and if we get sick on the first day of sitting for the exam that would be difficult. I request that similar to how the A/L 2020 examination was conducted during the onset of the second wave of Covid-19, if the Ministry of Education and the Department of Examinations could allow us to sit for the exam at the nearest examination centre, it would be greatly appreciated.” No change in exam dates Ministry of Education Secretary Prof. Kapila Perera explained how they decided on the examination dates for the upcoming GCE A/L examination. “We decided on the dates for the examinations after thoroughly analysing the situation. The Commissioner General of Examinations, Department of Examinations, National Institute of Education, the subject directors at the Ministry of Education, and subject directors at the Provincial Education Office had several discussions before setting this date for the examination,” Prof. Perera told The Sunday Morning. Although experts had advised that sufficient time should be given for students to recover their learning losses over 20 weeks, it seems that the students sitting for the GCE A/L examination of 2021 in February 2022 will be falling short of almost a four-week learning period. According to Prof. Perera, the 2021 batch of the A/L students had sufficient time to prepare for the examinations that are scheduled to commence on 7 February this year. “I held Zoom meetings with several groups that are representing students sitting for the upcoming exam. These groups agreed with us on holding the exams on the scheduled dates. If you look at how academic activities are carried out for A/L students in a regular year, their syllabus is covered by March and the exams are held in August. Between the period of March and August all they do is revisions of their lessons. Therefore we believe they had sufficient time to cover the syllabus by now,” Prof. Perera noted. While accepting that there were some requests regarding non-coverage of the syllabus, Prof. Perera reiterated that the whole syllabus should be covered by now. He stated that some children study right from the start, while some children study closer to the exam dates. “It would have been cost effective for us to hold the 2021 Grade 5 scholarship exams in February along with the GCE A/L exams. However, many parents made requests to hold the exams in January as they had observed that the children were getting depressed with the exams getting postponed,” Prof. Perera said. Speaking about the GCE O/L exams, the Education Secretary stated that there was still time for the GCE O/L students to prepare for their exams as they would be held on 23 May, adding that not all schools would give time off to GCE O/L students while the GCE A/L Exams were being conducted. Prof. Perera expressed confidence that by May the 2021 GCE O/L curricula would be covered and therefore those children did not have to worry about exams. He added that the exam papers would include questions covering the entire syllabus, as any alterations to the exam paper would mean a drop in the quality standards of the exam itself. Furthermore, Prof. Perera stated that regardless of the concerns being raised at present, the scheduled dates of the exams were not going to be changed. Confident on syllabus coverage While the Ministry of Education stands firm on not changing the dates of the exams, The Sunday Morning spoke to Government Teachers Association of Sri Lanka (GTASL) General Secretary Shehan Dissanayake to inquire whether the teachers had had sufficient time to cover the syllabus for these grades and prepare the students for the upcoming exams. “In terms of covering the syllabus for these grades, most of the schools have been able to complete the syllabus. The only concern we would have is how the rural schools would have managed to cover the syllabus. However, it will not be fair to the rest of the student population if we continue to postpone the 2021 school national exams,” Dissanayake explained. He also noted that since national exams were conducted in a standardised manner, all students would be answering the same set of questions across the island and teachers educating students for these grades were well aware of the type of questions that students would have to respond to when sitting for the exam. “Despite the issues that the teachers were facing over their salary anomalies, we believe they have done a fair job in preparing these students for the exams even amidst a pandemic. In rural schools, teachers went out of the way to print out the lessons and activity sheets for these students using their own money due to the lack of connectivity and technology. We do not doubt that the teachers and students have by now done their level best to prepare for these exams,” Dissanayake concluded.  


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