Hasty release cause for blunder: SB

Daily Mirror, WEDNESDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2011 10:28 Pressure exerted by various quarters including highly influential authorities and others who expected to enroll students at overseas universities triggered the hasty release of the 2011 GCE Advanced Level results that contributed to the ranking mess-up, Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake said yesterday. Addressing the media at his office, Minister Dissanayake said President Rajapaksa met him along with Education Minister Bandula Gunawardana and officials of both ministries on several occasions, and questioned about the delays in releasing the GCE Advanced Level results and instructed that the process be expedited. Students who were looking forward to enroll themselves at foreign universities and their parents wanted the results to be released promptly as the deadline for registration was approaching, he said. Minister Dissanayake however, assured that the 2011 GCE Advanced Level results now available on the internet were correct but said he could not give a guarantee that there would not be a repetition of exam result mess-ups in future as it was a tedious and cumbersome job involving several state institutions mainly, the Examinations Department, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in addition to thousands of teachers and students. “The mistakes that occurred in the district rankings have been rectified and the correct results of the 2011 GCE Advanced Level examination have now been released,” Minister Dissanayake said. He said no one should attempt to find fault with another institution or individual in this episode and there would be no inquiry to ascertain who made the blunder. Minister Dissanayake stressed that there was nothing wrong in the GCE Advanced Level results, Z-score or Island Rankings but the error was only on district ranking as there was a mix up in the rankings of the Matara and Colombo Districts. The mix up had occurred when district results were calculated at the Examinations Department and it was purely a technical/computer error and it has been fully rectified now, he said. Minister Dissanayake said officials worked two 24 hour sessions to issue the results as soon as possible. Responding to the complaints that a number of students had received results totally different to the stream they offered at the examination, he said the blunder had been made by the students themselves when they checked their results on the internet by accessing using a wrong number. “We found that all students who have got contradictory results had typed the GIT (General Information Technology) number instead of their index number to check their exam results which is obviously wrong. They get only the results of another student who sat the exam in a different stream of the results of a previous year,” he stressed. UGC Chairman, Prof. Gamini Samaranayaka said the UGC received the results from the Examinations Department on December 23 to set the Z-score and sent the results back to the department with the Z-score the following day. Commissioner of Examinations in charge of School Examinations and Results Amith Jayasundara appealed to apply for the revision of results if there were doubts. Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne assisted Minister Disssnayake during the news briefing. (Sandun A. Jayasekera)