Students have nothing to protest about —Nimal Siripala de Silva
By Aisha Nazim
A report regarding the irregularities between the old and new Z-scores will be completed within two weeks, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said.
He said it was disgraceful how many opposition parties were exploiting the students’ confusion with regard to their Z-scores and getting the students involved in protests.
Addressing a media briefing in Colombo, he said the Z-score muddle was nothing to protest about as it was not calculated by the President, ministers or by any other politician, but by highly qualified professionals.
“The Z-scores were calculated by mathematicians, professionals and intellectuals. There was no political interference. However, following the Supreme Court’s ruling to recalculate the Z-score, an intellectual committee recalculated it and released the final results. There’s nothing to protest about. Furthermore, as many students claim that there are vast differences between their old and new scores and district rankings, we are taking steps to resolve that and provide relief for them,” he said.
President Rajapaksa had ordered Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake to prepare a report including the statistics of students who sat for their A/Levels under the new and old syllabi. Minister Siripala said it was the government’s duty to ensure that no student suffered any injustice, and that steps will be taken to provide adequate relief to students who were dissatisfied with the re-evaluated ranks.
