Education Minister Dr. Susil Premajayantha said that schoolchildren are badly affected by the delay in holding regular examinations on schedule. The Minister was speaking at the ‘Guru Pratibha Prabha 2022’ Teacher-Principal Tribute Ceremony at the Education Ministry.
The Minister said that every exam is now held six, seven or eight months behind schedule.
He pointed out that more problems will arise when trying to match the exam schedule with the school calendar. Minister Premajayantha accused certain politicians of trying to gain maximum political mileage by creating unnecessary issues regarding the education system and the holding of examinations.
“If there is a topic or subject that can be advantageous or bring personal benefits, certain politicians will grab on to such opportunities with both hands to gain advantage without trying to analyze the problem as a whole,” he noted. He added that the country’s education system will have to go into an era of transformation and the necessary administrative changes will be introduced by January 1.
At the ceremony, 10 teachers and 5 Principals from each Province were presented with 135 evaluations representing the nine provinces at the Guru Pratibha Prabha Festival.
“We cannot go back to the old system of education, which has been in operation for 74 years. Today, I went to UNESCO. The main topic there was the transformation of education. We had begun to implement that transformation as a reform. Our hope is to introduce the administrative reforms by January 1. The proposed educational transformation must be able to keep pace with the changes in the modern world,” the Minister added. He further said that exams were delayed due to COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, results of a survey conducted of Grade 3 students have revealed the need for improving the literary level of students.”I have informed the relevant officials to formulate literacy development programmes based on it,” he said.
The Minister pointed out that classrooms especially in popular schools are filled to capacity with students, when there should not be more than 40 students in each classroom.
“Can teachers teach a class filled with 60 or more students when that classroom should only accommodate 40 students. The teacher has to sometimes stand outside the classroom while the children are inside. So is this a successful system of education?. I will implement the required reform to put the system back on track,” Minister Dr. Premajayantha added. A programme is being prepared to introduce the use of the English language to Grades 1 and 2 from next year.
For this, training sessions should be conducted for primary teachers. Plans are also afoot to implement a special programme to increase literacy in Grades 1, 2, and 3 as shown in the recent survey conducted.
“Microsoft has proposed to introduce Artificial Intelligence in Grade 10. We must keep up with the changing knowledge of the world. There are schools that don’t even have Smart Classrooms or televisions. Sixteen educational channels are ready to be given free of charge, so if at least one television set can be provided to the schools, the children can watch the series of lessons even if there is no teacher,” he added.
Source:http://www.dailynews.lk/
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