The G.C.E. Ordinary Level Examination is scheduled to be held from March 1 to 11, 2021, said Education Minister Prof. G.L Peiris.
The Minister of Education was speaking at a media briefing held at Water’s Edge Hotel yesterday (07).
The GCE Ordinary Level Examination, which was earlier scheduled to be held from January 18 to 27 next year, was postponed taking into account the spread of coronavirus in the country.
“Approximately 5,000 examination centers are required to conduct the G.C.E. Ordinary Level Examination. We provide the required health equipment to each of these centers without any shortcomings. Necessary funds have already been allocated for this purpose. Meanwhile, we look forward to reviewing the state of health in the country on a weekly basis”, Minister added.
“Accordingly, we hope to reopen schools islandwide as soon as possible subject to health guidelines. The current situation is that only 5,100 schools are open. There are 10,165 schools in the country as a whole. I earnestly urge everyone not to allow this issue to become politicized. The G.C.E. Advanced Level Examination as well as the Grade 5 Scholarship Examination were held successfully in this manner due to the generous support of all. Nearly 621,000 students are eligible to sit for the GCE Ordinary Level Examination 2020,” the Minister further said.
Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena said that Sri Lanka’s economy, which has been in a state of collapse since 2015, was plunged further into the abyss by the Easter attacks and the COVID-19 epidemic.
“We are faced with a challenge of bringing the country’s economic growth rate back to 5% -6% by 2021. An extraordinary amount of foreign exchange is required to pay interest on foreign loan installments,” Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena highlighted.
“This will require US $ 4.5 billion or more per year until 2019. We are also facing this crisis. The challenge of how to increase the investment rate through the revival of small, medium scale industries and the agricultural sector that collapsed due to the Covid 19 epidemic. In the foreign exchange issue, there is the challenge of how to protect the value of money and move forward next year,” Minister Dr.Bandula Gunawardena also said.
He further stressed that although the budget contained a number of strategic proposals to overcome these challenges, the Opposition did not translate this budget into an enlightened debate. This budget has been prepared to uplift the country through an autonomous economy with greater confidence in the resources and the people of this country.
