ORALTEST IN ENGLISH FOR 25%OFTHEMARKSBY2016

Twenty-five percent of the marks awarded to students sitting the G.C.E. (Ordinary Level) Examination in the English Language will be based on an oral test held in the student’s school premises by the year 2016, said Minister Bandula Gunawardane yesterday.

He said that this programme would be introduced from next year. “Next year, we will give only ten percent of marks for this test. We will increase it in stages up to 25 percent in 2016,” he said.

Mr. Gunwardane said that there had been no marked improvement in the teaching of the English language in schools over the years and, consequently, no significant improvement in the results. He said that even students who had passed with distinction in the English language did not have sufficient communication skills. “We have to take drastic steps to correct this. There will be an oral test in English at the O/level exam next year. Students will be required to face this school based test to be awarded ten percent of the marks. They can get only 90 percent for the written test next year. We will increase the percentage awarded for the oral test in stages,” he said.

The minister said that a crash programme would be introduced to improve the results in the Science, Mathematics and English tests, beginning this year. “Students perform well in other subjects such as their mother tongue and religious studies. But their

We have to take drastic steps to correct this. There will be an oral test in English at the O/level exam next year. Students will be required to face this school based test to be awarded ten percent of the marks.they can get only 90 percent for the written test next year

performance in these three subjects was far from satisfactory. At present only about 50 percent pass in Science and Mathematics. The situation is even worse in English. We want to increase the percentage of passes to at least eighty,” he said.