PROTESTS OVER A/L RESULTS REVISION
While Dhara Wijetilaka committee worked round the clock yesterday to finalize the report on the GCE A/L results blunder, the academia and the education sector trade unions intensified their protest campaign and urged the government to withdraw the A/L results and re-assess and re-issue them.
The main event would a lecture given by Professor Raffel A Thatil attached to the Agriculture department of the Peradeniya University who invented the Z Score, at 3.00 p.m. at a conference to be held on the issue at the Colombo Public Library.
General Secretary of the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) Joseph Stalin said the conference would be attended by Federation of University Teachers, Organization of Graded Principals, All Ceylon Principals’ Services Union, Education Professionals Association, First Grade Principals Union, Sri Lanka Principals Organization, the CTU, Ceylon United Teachers Union, Ceylon Progressive Teachers Union and Independent Education Employees Union that represent all sections of the national education.
He added that representatives of all these trade unions were expected to address the conference demanding the suspension of the GC A/L results and immediate resignation of education minister Bandula Gunawardana.
Mr. Stalin added that the Dhara Wijetilaka committee has lost the confidence as it did not take the right path to probe the A/L results blunder.
“The committee should have suspended the results before it started the probe. They haven’t done that and lost the credibility. The public do not know their mandate or the term of reference. We have no doubt that the committee report will not be different from the one that issued after the inquiry of the Katunayaka incident where protests were held against the private pension scheme and led to the killing of an innocent youth.
Meanwhile, the source of the Dhara Wijetilaka Committee said every efforts would be taken to hand over the report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa this afternoon.