Parents must guide their children

The GCE Ordinary Level examination is the stepping stone that decides the future of a student, be it higher studies or a path of vocational professionalism. We are aware that the GCE O/L examination is now on countrywide for students to decide their pathway in life. We’ve read a few stories in the media on the quality and content of a few question papers that gave cause to controversy.

Be that as it may, the episode unfolded in this dialogues is far from education though the script is based on an incident within an examination centre where love preceded the value of education and that of the examination.

Four police teams had to be rushed into an examination centre in the Gampola area where the GCE O/L exam was in progress. What was the reason and cause? You would be surprised at this revelation as it was no clash between two student groups as we have witnessed in some higher education institutes like Technical Colleges and Universities. Population figures show that females have overtaken the number of males in the country. Certainly, then the males are much in demand. It’s astonishing that the female gender had realised this important factor from GCE O/L standards. The incident at the Gampola Exam centre revealed that two schoolgirls had fallen in love with one schoolboy.

The two girls finally decided physically to take on each other to win over the boy. We saw such battles in the past among male students and not to the contrary. Leaving aside their own future dreams, they caused panic among the other students disturbing the concentration to the important examination.

This is why we cannot treat that as another incident and ignore. May be there were many other incidents in other examination centres countrywide and some were reported by media. This was the most violent incident reported so far. Violence at examination centres should not be tolerated. It destroys the future of a large number of talented students who commit their lives for education and poor parents’ hard earned money invested in their children.

Here are some major issues for debate. Who compensates for the disturbed concentration of other students at the exam hall?

An apology from the parents of the three students (the boy and two girls) involved in the incident cannot compensate damage caused to other students. A concentration disturb cannot be resurrected within the time frame of the answer script. Time is more valuable than gold for a student at an exam.

Indisciplined behaviour is made testimony to prove that students ignore and abuse the offer of free education. The fact is that education is at the bottom of their list of priorities. The whole social system is facing a crisis here with no discipline, no interest to study with no guidance and adequate monitoring. Teachers, parents and guardians have a role to play in that regard.

Child Protection Committees scattered countrywide and the numerous state officials such as Child Rights Promotion Officers appointed to look after the child community who are based in every Divisional Secretariat of Sri Lanka will not be able to tackle this type of problems alone without parents’ contribution. According to the Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry sources, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s concept ‘Mathata Thitha’ (Full stop to drugs and alcohol) has rendered a remarkable service to the country so far by saving children, adolescent and youths from drugs and alcohol. It is discovered that, now only adults continue the abuse drugs and alcohol. Arrangements were also made to prevent children from getting access to porn web sites through service providers of mobile phones. From all such steps the Government has already taken all possible steps to protect the future generation of country.

Parents must guide their children. The parents and guardians of the children cannot expect the Government to do everything for a child. It is the duty of the parents to look after their children and monitor their education.

The problem will go deeper, if parents continue to ignore their responsibilities. Do not hesitate to say ‘no’ to your child for anything that may cause harm to them.