Editorial

Retaining dirty bath water?
August 26, 2012, 8:01 pm , The Island

Things that King Midas touched turned into gold. And anything our politicians touch turns into a mess. The Z-score dispute is a case in point. They have messed it up in such a way that people are beginning to lose faith in public examinations. It is speculated in political circles that moves are underway to scrap the Z-score method.

The current university admission imbroglio is due to bungling on the part of the Education Ministry and the University Grants Commission (UGC), but the government is apparently trying to attribute it to the Z-score! The ruling party worthies should own up to their blunders that have resulted in the GCE A/L results mess-up without trying to hoodwink the public.

Instead of busying itself with such pursuits the government should address the real issues affecting the education and higher education sectors. Universities remain closed save a few and their standards are rapidly deteriorating. The GCE A/L has evolved into a torturous process for children as the national universities lack resources to accommodate all students who qualify for higher education. If more funds are allocated for the development of universities with a view to enrolling a higher number of students, among other things, the stiff competition hapless children who cannot pay for their higher education either here or overseas have to face to gain university admission will become less severe. Students dependent on 'free' education fit the Dickensian description of pupils in Hard Times; they are vessels into which copious amounts of facts are poured. They are not at peace with the world and it is no surprise that the substance abuse and alcohol consumption are on the rise.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, immediately after his installation in 2005, summoned the education bigwigs and told them in no uncertain terms that children must not be used as guinea pigs in their experiments and wanted care to be taken when syllabi were revised and changes effected to examinations. But, unfortunately, what is being practised is the very obverse of his directive!

The Grade Five Scholarship Examination (GFSE) was being held while this comment was written. It is a glaring example of inequitable distribution of resources and other inequalities in the education sector; it is also a damning indictment on successive governments which have not cared to develop the state-run schools other than the privileged few in urban areas. They have, over the years, created a situation where the progeny of the affluent are admitted to Grade One classes of popular schools because of parental wealth and influence while the children of the less fortunate people who can neither peddle influence nor raise funds to oil palms are made to jump through the hoops to secure places in popular schools.

The government is preoccupied with grandiose projects such a building ports and airports while promising to make Sri Lanka the Knowledge Hub in the region. It is not ports without ships or airports without planes that this country needs urgently but the development of vital sectors like education and higher education. The government should get its priorities right.

As for the reported move to adopt a different method to rank GCE A/L candidates for university admissions, let the government be warned against making hasty decisions, according to its whims and fancies, which might lead to bigger problems causing further erosion of public faith in the university entrance examination. It is not the existing scaling method that, in our view, should be changed but the bungling politicians and their bureaucratic lackeys. The government is apparently trying to throw the baby out and retain the dirty bath water.