Preliminary investigations have revealed that three data entry operators had messed up the August 2011 GCE A/L examinations results, Youth Affairs and Skills Development Minister Dulles Alahapperuma said yesterday. He told a news conference that the government accepted full responsibility for the blunder and would not put only Education Minister Bandula Gunawardana on the firing line.

The minister admitted that the GCE A/L fiasco had embarrassed the government with even President Mahinda Rajapaksa concerned about what happened. He said he was confident that the Dhara Wijetilaka committee would make recommendations to prevent a repetition of this nature in the future.

"The five-member committee appointed by the President is quite capable of dealing with the issue and propose strong and long term recommendations. All this will be known in the next ten days when the committee report is submitted to the President," the minister said and added that the subject minister of Youth Affairs and Skills development would promote the concept of enrolling students for university education based on the GCE O/L results.

This concept is getting popular in all other countries as it will enable students to have direct access to universities after obtaining GCE O/L qualifications plus a foundation course.

This system will help a student to obtain a university degree in a shorter time without going through the hassles of the GCE A/L exam. The predicament faced be the national education following the GCE A/L results blunder would not have occured if there was such a system in Sri Lanka" the minister said.

Our provincial correspondents say there were countrywide protests demanding the withdrawal of the results and the resignation of Education minister Gunawardana.

Students. parents, teachers others held protest campaigns in several parts of the country demanding a review of the GCE A/L results. They wanted fresh set of results released and a fresh set of island and district rankings.

The parentswere angry over the examinations department's decision to charge a student Rs. 250 for each subject when applying for a revision of their results because the blunder was done by the Examination Department.

Source: Daily Mirror - Sri Lanka