#Ministry probes A/L #students’ ‘illegal sittings’

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

The Education Ministry has launched an investigation following its findings that around 200 students had sat for the A/L examination from the Nuwara Eliya and Puttalam districts illegally, to gain an unfair advantage to enter state universities. The ministry found that these students are not eligible to sit the exam from the two districts as they had studied in schools outside the two district educational zones, State Minister V.S. Radhakrishnan told the Daily News yesterday.

The candidates have thus sat for their A/L exams in Nuwara Eliya and Puttalam educational zones to gain an unfair advantage to enter universities through lower Z-score cut-off marks, which determines university access for students in these zones, Radhakrisnan said.

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  Chamikara WEERASINGH
  The Education Ministry has launched an investigation following its findings that around 200 students had sat for the A/L examination from the Nuwara Eliya and Puttalam districts illegally, to gain an unfair advantage to enter state universities. The ministry found that these students are not eligible to sit the exam from the two districts as they had studied in schools outside the two district educational zones, State Minister V.S. Radhakrishnan told the Daily News yesterdayThe candidates have thus sat for their A/L exams in Nuwara Eliya and Puttalam educational zones to gain an unfair advantage to enter universities through lower Z-score cut-off marks, which determines university access for students in these zones, Radhakrisnan said.

He said the ministry has directed zonal education directors of Nuwara Eliya and Wayamba provinces to find the real addresses of the students who sat their A/L exams in Nuwara Eliya, Puttalam and Anuradhapura districts.

“The numbers of the national identity cards of the students who sat for this year’s A/L exam in the respective provinces will be used to verify their real addresses,” the minister said.

“The other students are mostly from the Western province as investigations have revealed so far. They are mostly students who have taken biology and mathematics as their A/L subjects.”

The minister also said they are planning to discuss this at the District Development Committee meeting in Nuwara Eliya today.

“We are planning to take a policy decision concerning the situation of students outside of the zone sitting A/L exams in it, at that meeting,” he said.