Crimes against innocent children
LankaBuzz
daybreak to go to school and on completing their school hours go
through a session at the private school. By the time they return home
it is night and parents have to incur extra expenditure to escort home
the female children. At the end of the day they are dead tired and in
that exhausted state they do their homework. I wonder how a human being
could go through this routine seven days a week, every week for two
whole years.
I got the reason for this from students attending the private classes.
They told me that the teaching at school is very poor and they never
complete the syllabus. This is known as a fact to every student and
parent except the government.
Things have gone so bad that students who attend private classes do not
go to school after they have completed 80% of the attendance which is
the minimum necessary to qualify to sit for the examination as a
student from that school.
The normal monthly fee per subject at a private school is 300 rupees
and many poor parents somehow or other manage to lay aside 900 rupees
per month for private tuition classes. After 80% of the school year has
been completed the private classes open for the whole day, continuing
with the syllabus as well as revisions with possible questions as
judged by very competent teachers.
The revision classes are 400 rupees per subject. The parents are now
forced to pay 700 rupees a month per subject amounting to an
expenditure of 2,100 rupees a month during the 20% period of the school
year. This is a lot of money for most people.
In this connection I must remind the readers that there are many heads
of departments who retired prior to a certain date who cannot afford to
spend 500 rupees per month to get the newspaper everyday. Many buy it
on Sundays only while others buy it on two days a week.
It is very unethical for those operating private classes to conduct
simultaneous revision classes for which they charge an extra fee before
the syllabus is completed but that is the way how things happen because
the teaching at school is inadequate and they take advantage of it.
In fairness to the teaching profession it has to be stated that there
are very dedicated schools with knowledgeable devoted teachers who
complete the syllabus on time and secure very good results for the
school but such schools are generally in affluent areas and they are
very rare.
Such are the hardships that the vast majority of students especially in
the provinces have to undergo to get a higher education so that they
could develop themselves to their maximum potential but the way in
which the Examinations Department attempted to hush up the grave
injustices done to provincial students using a faulty computer makes us
wonder whether those responsible have human feelings.
Apart from human feelings that are not recognized by law their attempt
to hush up is criminal because it involves the deprivation of the
fundamental rights of citizens. It has been stated that the former
commissioner of examinations has refused to reexamine question papers
marked by the faulty computer. If that is so, he should be summoned to
explain why and if the answer is not satisfactory to the parents and
students criminal charges should be brought against him.
Lastly but most probably not the least, those responsible for
allocating a Z-score of 2.0003 for medicine for the Hambantota district
and 1.9478 for the Gampaha district should also be asked to explain why
only because it is their right to be asked why.
This score should be over-ruled and if any motive could be attributed
then criminal charges should also be brought against them as well.
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