Bandula appeals to striking dons to evaluate A/L answer scripts

September 18, 2012, 6:52 am 

by Dasun Edirisinghe, The Island

The Education Ministry yesterday appealed to striking university teachers to consider the plight of innocent students and begin GCE (A/L) answer script evaluation.

Addressing a media conference at the Ministry auditorium, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said that the ministry had been compelled to to postpone the answer script evaluation indefinitely due to the on going strike by university teachers.

"We need 400 university teachers for answer script evaluation," he said adding that those university professors and lecturers assisted 12,000 – 15,000 teachers in paper marking.

The GCE (A/L) examination ended on August 30 and 277,097 candidates answered a total of 523 question papers at the examination.

Gunawardena said that there were 1.8 million answer scripts to be evaluated and they could not evaluate papers without university teachers.

He said that they would not think of any other options to mark answer scripts, other than with involvement of university teachers.

"From our side we have provided all necessities for university teachers including the right to admit their children to popular schools without any hesitation," Gunawardena said.

Commissioner General of Examinations W. M. N. J. Pushpakumara said that he sent letters to university teachers yesterday asking them to participate in paper marking.

He said that the department had earlier scheduled to evaluate answer scripts in three steps from Sept. 01 to Oct. 07.

"If university teachers express their willingness to evaluate answer scripts we will conduct it in two steps at 50 schools to expedite the process," Pushpakumara said adding that earlier it had planned to hold paper marking only in 23 schools.

He said that the delay in paper marking could lead to several problems including delay in university admissions, applying for foreign universities, local higher educational institutions and jobs.

When contacted by The Island for comment, President of the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri said that they had no problem with innocent students, but they could not participate in paper marking while on a strike.