Vadamaradchi exams cancelled
[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 December 1998, 18:09 GMT]
Students, parents and teachers in Vadamaradchi east were angered today by a decision by the Jaffna district department of education not to hold the GCE (O.L)exams scheduled to be held on December 14 at five examination centres in their area.
The department said that it cannot hold the (O.L) exams which were scheduled to held in five schools in Vadamaradchi east because the security situation in the area was not conducive. Parents and students charged that this was a lame excuse. The army had granted permission to hold the exam at the five centres following representations by school development boards and citizen's committees that student's were finding it very difficult to travel everyday to Pt.Pedro for the exams or stay there for the purpose. Many parents and students in the villages of Vadamaradchi east affected by the decision said that the main culprits are officials of the Department of education in Jaffna who want to avoid the hassle of travelling to villages in this remote region and instead hold the exam in one centre to suit their convenience. The Department of education in Jaffna said that it will cluster all the examination centres of the Vadamaradchi east region at the American Mission Tamil Mixed School in Puloly, a suburb of Pt.Pedro. This will greatly inconvenience the (O.L) students as the announcement came so close to the examination date and despite SLA clearance and because students have to find temporary lodging at Pt.Pedro as travelling daily from the villages of Vadamaradchi to Pt.Pedro is well nigh impossible now due to travel restrictions imposed on the region by the SLA.
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