UPFA General Secretary and Education Minister Susil Premjayanth yesterday attributed having crisis-free mid-term tests in the Jaffna peninsula to the absence of political interference at provincial level and interest taken by officials in charge of the subject.

Responding to The Island queries at yesterday’s UPFA press conference at the Mahaweli Centre, to discuss the forthcoming PC elections at Uva and local government polls at Vavuniya and Jaffna, the Minister asserted that the absence of a Chief Minister had contributed to their success whereas the situation in areas outside the North and East had been entirely different. He accused provincial administrations, particularly education officials of neglecting their duty.

Asked whether the government wasn’t responsible for the mess as all provincial councils had been run by the ruling coalition, he said that education had been a devolved subject. Though the government couldn’t act directly it would push for action through the provincial administration of respective regions.

He said that during a recent visit to Jaffna he was briefed on the smooth conduct of the second term test.

Recalling his tenure as Chief Minister of the WPC, Premjayanth said that at that time they never charged students for question papers. The process had never been corrupt like this, acknowledging that the North Central Province had been one of the worst affected by shoddy handling of the second term test.

Emphasising the importance of team work, the Minister said that the government had been successful in its campaign against the LTTE primarily due team work. Unfortunately this hadn’t been the case regarding the mid-term test, he said, adding that the ministry had to intervene to compel all schools to hold term tests. He revealed that a few years ago some schools had quietly stopped having term tests and he issued a circular making term tests compulsory, he said.

Asked whether he would accept UPFA chief ministerial candidate Sashindra Rajapaksa recent declaration that the education sector needed a major boost in the Uva region, the minister said that the standards would gradually improve due to ongoing efforts of the Rajapaksa government. He said that dearth of qualified teachers, quality of teachers as well as difficult conditions in that region, too, contributed to poor showing by Uva students at all levels of examinations.