Students preparing for the A Level examinations leave home before daybreak to go to school and on completing their school hours go through a session at the private school. By the time they return home it is night and parents have to incur extra expenditure to escort home the female children. At the end of the day they are dead tired and in that exhausted state they do their homework. I wonder how a human being could go through this routine seven days a week, every week for two whole years.

I got the reason for this from students attending the private classes. They told me that the teaching at school is very poor and they never complete the syllabus. This is known as a fact to every student and parent except the government.

Things have gone so bad that students who attend private classes do not go to school after they have completed 80% of the attendance which is the minimum necessary to qualify to sit for the examination as a student from that school.

The normal monthly fee per subject at a private school is 300 rupees and many poor parents somehow or other manage to lay aside 900 rupees per month for private tuition classes. After 80% of the school year has been completed the private classes open for the whole day, continuing with the syllabus as well as revisions with possible questions as judged by very competent teachers.

The revision classes are 400 rupees per subject. The parents are now forced to pay 700 rupees a month per subject amounting to an expenditure of 2,100 rupees a month during the 20% period of the school year. This is a lot of money for most people.

In this connection I must remind the readers that there are many heads of departments who retired prior to a certain date who cannot afford to spend 500 rupees per month to get the newspaper everyday. Many buy it on Sundays only while others buy it on two days a week.

It is very unethical for those operating private classes to conduct simultaneous revision classes for which they charge an extra fee before the syllabus is completed but that is the way how things happen because the teaching at school is inadequate and they take advantage of it.

In fairness to the teaching profession it has to be stated that there are very dedicated schools with knowledgeable devoted teachers who complete the syllabus on time and secure very good results for the school but such schools are generally in affluent areas and they are very rare.

Such are the hardships that the vast majority of students especially in the provinces have to undergo to get a higher education so that they could develop themselves to their maximum potential but the way in which the Examinations Department attempted to hush up the grave injustices done to provincial students using a faulty computer makes us wonder whether those responsible have human feelings.

Apart from human feelings that are not recognized by law their attempt to hush up is criminal because it involves the deprivation of the fundamental rights of citizens. It has been stated that the former commissioner of examinations has refused to reexamine question papers marked by the faulty computer. If that is so, he should be summoned to explain why and if the answer is not satisfactory to the parents and students criminal charges should be brought against him.

Lastly but most probably not the least, those responsible for allocating a Z-score of 2.0003 for medicine for the Hambantota district and 1.9478 for the Gampaha district should also be asked to explain why only because it is their right to be asked why.

This score should be over-ruled and if any motive could be attributed then criminal charges should also be brought against them as well.