University admissions 2012/13

July 30, 2012, 7:39 pm 

In 2011, our son sat for his A/L’s for the second time in the Maths stream and passed with 3 As. However, with the latest release of the rankings, his district rank had gone down by over 100 positions. It seems that this is the plight for all the students who sat GCE A/L from the old syllabus. Their ranks have reduced drastically. This has also meant that even though previously they thought they could enter university, now they have realized they may not be able to. It is a mental agony for these innocent students. The examinations department has requested all students who wish to sit for A/L’s exam this August to apply immediately. However, as anyone can understand, A/L is not an exam for which one can prepare in a mere 2 weeks time! It’ll require at least six months to prepare for the exam adequately. The students who followed the old syllabus sat the A/L’s either for the second or the third time. Hence, for some of them, it is the last chance they have to enter university.

This is not the first time that local GCE A/L exam was held for two syllabuses. In the past, syllabuses have been changed many times and yet students did not experience any difficulties when entering the university. The whole process was handled smoothly. That being the case, the UGC should be able to find out how the admissions were handled at that time so that the same method can be followed.

In order to ensure that the students are not penalized, we suggest that a quota system be introduced to admit "qualified" students from both categories. The quota allocated to each batch can be based on the ratio between the number of students who passed the exam from the two syllabuses. Or, the quota could be determined by analyzing admissions in previous years to identify the percentages of students admitted from each sitting (first timers and repeaters) in the past few years. There should be two cut off marks; one for the students of the new syllabus and another for the students of the old syllabus. The district and island ranks should also be announced separately.

Else, we suggest that the intake for this year should be increased, if possible, and the increase in the intake could be used to admit students from the old syllabus. The students who sat from the old syllabus did the examination for either the 2nd or the 3rd time. Therefore for the ones who did the exam for the third time, they do not have any other chance to get selected to a university. Therefore it is clear that the ones who are most affected by this situation are the ones who sat the exam under the old syllabus.

We hope that this matter will be handled in a way that is beneficial to all the students who sat for the 2011 A/L exam.

Worried Parent