AL exam to be held from Feb 07

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Prof. Kapila Perera says the GCE AL exam will be held from 07 February. He said the decision had been arrived at following discussions with all stake holders.

Prof. Perera said that usually students sat the exam after facing six term tests, but this time around they will sit the examination after facing only a single test.

“These are not normal circumstances. Before making decisions on holding the exams, we met groups that represent students. Actually, they wanted to meet us before we made a decision. So, we spoke to students’ representatives across the country. We spoke to a lot of children and we spoke to a lot of officials,” he said.

Some students wanted the exam to be held as soon as possible. However, others wanted time till January 2022, Prof. Perera said, adding that it had therefore been decided to hold the examination in February.

“Some children have asked me if the exam will be easy this time. This is not a question I can answer and the difficulty in an exam is a subjective thing. I really don’t think those who set papers drastically change the level of difficulty. They maintain a set standard. Recently, some people claimed the Year 5 scholarship exam was easy because 10 children got 200 marks. However, when we looked at the top percentile of students, there hasn’t been much of a change in the last decade,” he said.