The Grade 5 Scholarship Examination experienced irregularities due to the leak of some of its questions, but Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said that urgent measures are being made to disclose the cut-off marks. In order to guarantee the security and integrity of next tests, it has also been suggested that examination boards create a resource pool and a bank of question papers.
Dr. Amarasuriya addressed the issue further, saying that a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigation found that a private tutor in the Kurunegala area shared three conceptually similar questions from the recent exam’s first question paper via a social media group of the relevant tuition class prior to the test.
Following one of the recommendations made by the relevant committee, a panel of experts appointed by the Commissioner General of Examinations has decided that the 13th respondent, who was found guilty in the case, must pay a fine of LKR 3 million, and the 6th and 9th respondents must pay LKR 2 million each in government fees.
A number of actions have been suggested to stop similar occurrences in the future in light of the Department of Examinations’ investigation’s conclusions. These include creating a question paper bank to improve examination security, enforcing stringent security checks for all individuals entering and leaving the Confidential Division, making sure that no confidential documents leave secure premises, conducting question paper preparation exclusively within the Confidential Division of the Department of Examinations, and hiring and training new members for examination boards to create a resource pool.
