Former Education Secy says wrong formula used for calculating Z-score

January 24, 2012, 9:22 pm , The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Former Secretary to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Prof. R. P. Gunawardane says the presidential committee appointed to look into issues related to the messing up of the district ranking of the GCE (A/L) results has overlooked the wrong formula used for calculating Z-scores pertaining to results from two different syllabuses.

In an article we publish on the editorial page today, Prof. Gunawardane says the erroneous formula has affected all Z-scores and the rankings. Thus, Z-scores and rankings of all the streams needed to be corrected, he says.

Recalculation of Z-scores should be carried out using the correct formula employed previously in 2001 in consultation with Prof. R.O. Thattil, who served as a consultant to the UGC/ Higher Education Ministry at the time, Prof. Gunawardane says.

Prof. Gunawardane suggests that the GCE (A/L) examination be held in April in every year from 2014 instead of August.