More qualify for A-Ls this year

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

Of the 268,995 candidates who sat the GCE O-L examination, 64.74 percentage qualified to sit the Advanced Level, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said.

Compared with last year's results, there has been a slight increase in the number of students who passed the examination since the rate was 60.8 percentage last year.

Around 10,000 students qualified to follow the Advanced Level this year, he said.

According to the result analysis of the Examinations Department, 4,509 students obtained A passes in all nine subjects and this rate was 3,908 last year. Meanwhile, 11,100 students failed all nine subjects, while 12,795 students failed all subjects last year.

The subject-wise pass percentage has seen a slight increase in certain subjects this year. The pass percentages for Mathematics was 55.35, Sinhala language and literature 84.99, History 67.17, Tamil language and literature 77.35, Buddhism 87.68, Catholic religion 95.68, Science 68.26 and English language 47.78. Examination Commissioner General W.M.N.J. Pushpakumara said answer script evaluators marked 9.1 million papers of 48 subjects. Practical tests were held for seven subjects including technical and aesthetic subjects.