Examination phobia of Sri Lankan teachers and students

(March 03, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Examination phobia of some sections of the students training to be qualified as the teachers have caused a massive damage to the public coffers of Sri Lanka. Examination Commissioner of Sri Lanka Anura Edirisinghe says that additional Rs. 12 million was needed to hold the postponed examinations of the Colleges of Educations.

Around 3000 would be teachers studying in 17 Colleges of Education are to sit for this examination and Edirisinghe pointed out that Rs. 18 million was spent for the final examinations of the Colleges of Education last year.

Sources said that the store of examination papers was not given additional security except the regular watchmen available for job.

Sri Lanka police arrested 33 students of Uva College of Education in suspicion of the theft of examination papers. The Examination Commissioner guaranteed tough legal action against the culprits.

The Department of Examination had to postpone the final examinations of all the Colleges of Education that were to be held since yesterday. An unknown person or a group stole one examination paper each from all sets of question papers that were stored in Uva College of Education in Bandarawela. The arrested students were residing in the hostel of the College.

Meanwhile, reports say that pilfering of examination papers has taken place in Polgolla College of Education in Kandy. However, no arrest has been made yet. Sources say that the students have broken open the sealed question paper packets, taken them out and photocopied them before returning them to the packets.

This incident should be focussed to identify the competitiveness of Sri Lanka's educational and examination system. Examinations have become a severe burden to education.

Must testing be a fear factor of education? Definitely not.

We have to think if such happened in Sri Lanka. How can we solve this problem?

Colleges of Education final examination is not a competitive examination like Advanced Levels. These students have less fears about the future since they are guaranteed government teacher positions once they are passed out of the colleges.

Informed sources say that various kinds of examination frauds are wide spread among the teacher trainees that are studying for professional qualifications. These teachers might be definite the distributors of examination phobia among the students.