The etuktuk delivers results!
Writing by kosala on Tuesday, 25 of September , 2007 at 6:25 pm
Yesterday the Examination Department released the Grade V scholarship examination results and they made it available on the Internet. As in the previous years many parents came to the CMC to get the results of their child sooner because it takes about two to three days for the result sheets to be delivered to schools via post. CMC charged Rs. 20 for a result with a Printout.
As this was happening I remembered an incident which happened last year. When I visited in the etuktuk to the rural village “lagumdeniya” to capture the moments of a village Sunday school prize giving festival I met a chatty little boy. He had done the grade five exam and was waiting for the results to come to the school. But the results have already been put on the Internet about one week back. I asked him whether he knew it or not. He said he knew but does not have access to the facilities so he had to wait until the results come to the school. All the students living in the urban areas get their results on the same day it is released but the story is different for the rural areas.
Therefore we decided to take the Internet to the village schools to provide exam results. There are three schools near by KCR. The kanapathiwatta estate school, Mavathura Primary school and the nayapana school. In the first place we decided to take etuktuk to the villages with a loudspeaker announcement mentioning the service to be provided. But it was unfortunate that the PA amplifier in the etuktuk was out of order and had to be repaired and we could not use the PA system. Without the PA system it is very unlikely to get the attention of the people. So we decide to go to the schools and talk with the school principle to provide the service for a minimal charge. We decided to charge 5 rupees for a result which is a very little amount. But we decided that if there is a special situation where a student couldn’t afford that amount, we would give the results free of charge. The 5 rupee charge is to cover the Internet bill of the phone and as a contribution for the etuktuk. Sriyapali, Prabath and Myself first went to the Kanapathiwatta estate school. It was 11.30a.m when we got there. Sriyapali and I went in to talk with the Principle. It is a very small school and did not have so much space. There were three buildings altogether for the entire schools. They were just 3 small halls where they conducted classes. When we entered the school gate some children were outside playing and I thought it was the Lunch Interval. It is a mixed tamil school where all the children from the tea estate went.. while sriyapali and I was walking towards the principles office little children started shouting “Kothmale FM”. It seemed that the etuktuk was a very familiar vehicle for them.
We explained the lady principle the purpose of our visit and she was very happy because they were also waiting for the exam results via post. Sriyapali talked with the principle about the World children’s day on October 1st and our intension of showing a children’s movie in the school. The principle was very happy about the idea and agreed to us time to show the film in the school time from 11.00 a.m plus a radio program from the school afterwards.
After discussing the program to be held on October 1st we came back to our original purpose. We asked the principle to sen all the students near the tuktuk so we could provide them with results. The next reply from the principle amazed me! She told that there are only 2 students sat for the scolarship examination. One little girl and a boy came near the etuktuk. We asked whether there are only two students in Grade 5 this year and the principle said that there are more students but most of them are not qualified to write the exam since they all are over aged. Most students have failed in classes several times and majority of the grade 5 students cant sit for the scholarship exam. There is a age restriction for the grade 5 scholarship exam where children over the age 12 cannot face the exam. Only two children was qualified to do the exam this year.
I checked both their results and sadly neither of them had enough marks to get to the pass level. We did not take any money from those poor chaps. And we continued to th Mavathura school. As I was going back I thought why did we have to go that school to delver the sad message of failure to those poor children. They are better off if they didn’t know the result. Mawathura primary school is a small sinhala school and there were many students who had sat for the exam. Most of the students paid 5 rupees and got to know their results. Some of the students already knew their results from the CMC. Some(5) did not have money to pay so we offered the service free for them.
It was almost 1.30 when we finished in Mawathura primary school and we did not have time to get to the other school since the schools end at 1.30. So we decided to get back to the station. In the end of the day I was so glad I learned that the internet in the tuktuk can be used to serve the information needs of the communities. But felt a bit sad about the estate school situation.
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Category: field visit
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