It’s Z-score, stupid!

Editorial-December 2, 2013

We thought the Z-score affected only GCE A/L students some of whom have even taken their lives, unable to secure higher rankings. But, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena tells us that the death of a famous university don has occurred due to an issue related to that scaling method!

Minister Gunawardena has recently told Parliament that Prof. K. R. M. T. Karunaratne, who headed an expert panel which prepared the 2011 GCE A/L Z-score formula, died due to a broken heart resulting from a Supreme Court judgment that rejected their method. He has said he will consult the Attorney General to find out whether the so-called Z-score ruling could be challenged.

If the Education Minister’s claim is true the government cannot absolve itself of the blame for having created the unholy mess which Prof. Karunaratne et al were tasked with clearing. When the GCE A/L new syllabus was introduced a few years ago, the government should have expected problems to crop up as regards the ranking of two student populations (under the new syllabus and the old syllabus) and taken steps to prepare a Z-score formula acceptable to one and all.

The ruling party pundits, true to form, appointed a panel, handpicked some experts, had a formula prepared, and tried to ram it down the throats of all stakeholders. That proved to be a colossal blunder. Had it been wise enough to include those who had been instrumental in introducing the Z-score here and were expressing dissenting views, in that panel, doubts and suspicions could easily have been allayed and a legal wrangle avoided.

Naturally, students who felt that they had been denied university admission because of the aggregation of marks of different subjects for the purpose of ranking went to the Supreme Court seeking relief. The government was left with egg on its face in the end and the rest is history. It has no one but itself to blame.

It is puzzling why the government has chosen to flog the Z-score issue again. No attempts should be made to use the Supreme Court judgment at issue as a bludgeon to beat the ‘impeached’ Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake with or to obtain a court ruling government politicians desire. For, such a course of action will plunge the higher education sector into a crisis again and lead to further erosion of public confidence in the judiciary. The government ought to act responsibly.

As for the Education Minister’s claim that the Z-score judgment was politically motivated, one may ask how the government would describe the Supreme Court determination––also during Dr. Bandaranayake’s tenure as CJ––on the controversial 18th Amendment which has stood it in good stead. Was it devoid of politics?

It behoves the government to stop worrying about the Z-score formula prescribed by the apex court and take steps to develop the national university system so that all students who qualify for university admission will be able to pursue higher education. At present, out of more than 150,000 students who qualify for university admission only 23,000 are selected. In other words, about 127,000 students are deprived of their right to university education. Little surprise that there have been two youth uprisings in this country! More funds will have to be invested in the education sector, among other things, if another one is to be averted.

It is being argued in some quarters that branches of foreign universities should be set up here to cater to the students who fail to gain admission to the state universities. But, most of them are too poor to pay for private university education and will not benefit from the proposed free education zones. Hence, the pressing need for expanding the national universities! The government should get its priorities right.