‘Most principals unhappy about lowering of school attendance requirement to 40 percent’

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Most principals were unhappy about the Education Ministry’s decision to allow schoolchildren with 40 percent attendance to sit the GCE AL examination this year, Additional Secretary – SCHOOL AFFAIRS, Nilamani Malaviarachchi said yesterday.

The Ministry of Education, prior to setting the cutoff mark for attendance at 40 percent, had allowed principals to take a decision on attendance after discussions at the school level, she said.

“However, people complained that many schools had set the attendance requirement at 60 percent. We must not forget that there were many issues preventing students from going to school in the past two years. So, 60 percent seemed unreasonable,” she said.