The Ministry of Education says it is intended to reduce school grades from 13 to 12 as part of the proposed new educational reforms.
Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha disclosed this while presenting the progress of the year 2023 and plans for the year 2024 for the budget of the Ministry of Education, to the Members of Parliament recently (Dec 01).
According to a Parliament statement, educational authorities at the event stated that through the proposed new education reforms, every child will be allowed to finish school in 17 years. Accordingly, pre-school education is classified as 4 years old, primary section 1-5, junior section 6-8 and senior section 9 to 12.
While it has been proposed to give a certain percentage of marks from school-based evaluations and a certain percentage from exams for the grade 5 scholarship exam, the Ministry of Education has also proposed to simplify the grade 5 scholarship exam and eliminate competition.
Furthermore, through the proposed new education reforms, the Ministry of Education has proposed to conduct the Ordinary Level examination in grade 10 and the Advanced Level examination is scheduled for grade 12. It has also been decided to reduce the number of subjects for the Ordinary level exam from 9 to 7. Officials of the Education Ministry stated that among those 7 subjects, it has been proposed to make it mandatory to study three new subjects; Information and Communication Technology (ICT), technical and professional skills and religious and values.
Pointing out that more than eighty thousand (80,000) students fail the ordinary level examination in a year, the officials of the Education Ministry suggested that no child will fail through the new education reforms and that all children who passed the Ordinary Level examination should be allowed to study vocational training courses.
For that, Advanced-level subjects have been classified into two categories; academic education and vocational education and a path has been prepared for every child to obtain a degree. The Education Ministry also pointed out that two new subjects have been added under academic studies by increasing the current subjects from 6 to 8. Furthermore, the officials stated that the children will receive the opportunity to obtain education through 10 subject areas under practical studies and through that, the children will get the opportunity to obtain degrees by going through vocational fields.
The Ministry pointed out that administrative restructuring is also taking place in the education service. The number of existing educational zones will increase from 100 to 122 and the total number of ten thousand one hundred and twenty-six (10,126) schools will be classified as cluster schools of one thousand two hundred and twenty (1220). All the existing national schools will be flagship schools in a cluster of schools as flagship schools at the provincial level.
The Education Ministry officials said that 517.05 billion rupees have been allocated for the Ministry of Education in this year’s budget for the year 2024. Of this, two thousand million rupees have been allocated for providing school textbooks, six million rupees for school uniforms, and two thousand five hundred million rupees for providing school shoes to seven hundred twenty-eight thousand four hundred and eighty (728,480) children. About 1.07 million school children are currently being given lunch and the same number is ready to be given to 1.5 million children in the year 2024, the Ministry of Education officials said.
State Minister of Education A. Aravindh Kumar, Ministers and Members of Parliament, Secretary to the Ministry of Education Nihal Ranasinghe, Commissioner General of Examinations Amit Jayasundara, Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Education Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara and a group of high officials of the Ministry of Education were present at this occasion. (NewsWire)