FUTA trade union action – past and present –II

Twenty years ago FUTA did not consider the University academics to belong to a special category, and the demands that were made to the authorities on salaries and other benefits were not based on that assumption. It is true that the University academics perform duties that the others do not but that does not make them a special category. If they belong to a special category then all the others not only ion the Universities but also in other places of work could claim themselves to constitute special categories and when each category consider themselves as a special category then the meaning of the word special category is lost. Except for the demand that a 6% of the GDP should be spent on education in general, all the other demands are based on the special category claim and as a result the demands cannot be justified. The Universities in Sri Lanka are mainly teaching universities and unfortunately no training is given to them in this field. When I joined the then University of Ceylon as an assistant lecturer forty five years ago I had no training in teaching except for the experience I had as a teacher for six months at Wadduwa Central College instructing students preparing for University Admissions in Pure and Applied Mathematics immediately after I sat for my University Preliminary (Entrance) examination n 1962. Some of the students in my classes were older than me but that did not give me any experience in teaching. I do not consider myself to be a good teacher, and many students kept away from my lectures in all the three universities I have taught as most probably they did not have anything to learn from me. One student who was taught by me at Wadduwa was unfortunate enough to find himself in my classes at Peradeniya! I have cited my experience at Wadduwa only to show that there was a dearth of teachers in most of the schools in Sri Lanka fifty years ago even in urban areas and over the years the situation has improved though there is much to be done especially in the rural areas. Just as much teachers in schools should be trained the University Lecturers are in need of training in teaching. It is true that some are born teachers but that is only a very small percentage that is negligible. It has to be mentioned that when this question came up twenty years ago many senior academics in the Faculties other than the Faculty of Education did not like the idea as they thought they had better qualifications than even their colleagues in the Faculty of Education. I do not want to go into details at this juncture as it would be embarrassing to some of them who are still living. If FUTA is interested in the improvement of university education it should take up this matter with the UGC and the ministry of higher education.

There has been an improvement in education in general over the years but parties with vested interests have been trying to show that there is a crisis in education at present. They are politically motivated as seen from the cry over the Z score problem and the mistakes in the G. C. E. (A/L) question papers this year. Some of these politically biased leaders of teacher unions and some journalists try to sling mud at the two ministers concerned as if they are responsible for the errors. The Z score problem is nothing but a creation of some University Academics and Journalists and of course some political parties and their leaders. The UGC had appointed a committee of experts drawn from the Universities to come up with a recommendation on admission of students to the universities as there were two sets of students who sat either for the new syllabus or old syllabus question papers. The Examination Department issued the Z scores of students calculated according to the formula recommended by the UGC, which itself was recommended by the committee of experts. The committee most probably recommended a formula that they had taken from a book, but unfortunately it was wrong conceptually. However the error was marginal in practice and I am told that the application of the formula did not alter the percentages of students admitted to the universities in each stream from students who sat the examination for the first time and those who repeated. The politically biased teacher trade unions, politicians in the opposition and some journalists unfortunately encouraged by Prof. Thatil were able to create a public opinion against the adoption of the formula of the experts drawn from the Universities. It is interesting to note that the committee was not criticized for the method adopted but the two ministers concerned. That was nothing but politicalizing an issue, and it should be realized that it is not only the government that is responsible for politicalization. The student bodies in the universities are politicalized, and unfortunately even FUTA is now engaged in politicalized issues as seen from the current trade union action.

The politically motivated agitations over the Z score was followed by litigation, and the Supreme Court decided that the Z scores should be calculated separately in the case of first times and the repeaters for the purpose of admission of students to the universities. The UGC instructed the Examination Department eventually to calculate the Z scores separately and arrange them in descending order as had been suggested by Prof. Thatil. All hell broke loose and it was found that the repeaters who sat the question papers in the old syllabus had been penalized as a result. For example in the last few years of the students who were admitted to the Faculties of Medicine about 56% had been from the repeaters, but this year with the adoption of the Thatil method it had come down to about 24%. Now the repeaters have gone before the Supreme Court and it appears that Supreme Court had said that the UGC had not carried out the instructions given by them. If that is so it has to be investigated and the UGC should be punished if they had failed to implement an order of the Supreme Court. Already a leader of the UNP has said that the present problem is due to the non implementation of the Supreme Court decision, and the Minister of Higher Education should initiate action to obtain the Supreme Court decision if it is legally possible. Apparently some 8000 students have been affected and it is the duty of the government to obtain the method recommended by the Supreme Court, if there is any recommendation as such and implement it. However, it is unfortunate, to say the least, that FUTA as a body is silent on this problem and has not thought of giving the expert opinion of the academic staff who are members of the unions that are affiliated to FUTA.

It has been found that there have been mistakes in the question papers set for the G. C. E. (A/L) examination this year and the very same teacher trade union that politicalized the Z score issue is up in arms against the government. It could be claimed that the Minister of Education is ultimately responsible for the mistakes but it is only a lame theoretical position that can be adopted by the relevant trade union to criticize the minister. What these critics do not mention is that there have been mistakes in question papers over the years and this year is not an exception. It is certainly not due to a so called crisis in education, and the setters, moderators, controllers in chief of examinations in each question paper are university academics who are adequately remunerated for their efforts. Though it is desirable to have question papers without any errors the work done by the academics have to be appreciated and we have to admit that human errors are always possible. I myself have been involved with this work for a few years, and I know the amount of time and effort that go into setting of question papers and that very often the academic staff available is very minimal. I know of a situation where there were only two academics available for setting, moderating and proof reading of four question papers and though question papers without errors is the most desirable the creep in of human errors have to be treated without political motivations. It is the practice for the board of examiners to get together and device a marking scheme taking into consideration the errors and to see that the students are penalized minimally as a result of the errors. What is bothering me is the silence of FUTA over this problem and the agitation of one of their mates that happens to be a politically motivated teacher union in the “struggle” to improve the education in general. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Z score and university admissions

The much awaited new Z scores were released by the Department of Examinations over the weekend and it appears that many students who repeated the examination have been left on the street as a result. Their ranks have come down both island wide and district wise and as a result some students who would have been admitted to the universities under the old Z scores would be left out. The UGC is unable to intervene at present as the old Z scores have been cancelled as a result of a Supreme Court decision. In an article published in “The Sunday Island” on 22nd July 2012, Dr. H. D. Goonetilleke of the Open University has shown that the percentage of repeaters who would be admitted to the universities under the new Z scores would be reduced roughly from about 55 to about 25. Since those who repeated the examination for the second time would not get an opportunity to sit the examination again it is a pity that those who would been admitted on the previous Z scores (so called pooled scheme) would find themselves outside the University. Some of them would have ended up as western medical practitioners and engineers and as far as they and their parents are concerned effort of fifteen years would have gone down the stream. These students and their parents have no option but to go before the Supreme Court and as I had mentioned in an article in “Irida Divaina” we are in for a series of court cases over University Admissions. With Courtesy of “The Sunday Island” one of the tables given by Dr. Goonetilleke is reproduced below.

What many people including teacher trade union leaders and human rights agitators, in their rush to criticize the government and gain political mileage either forgot or failed to understand was that final admissions to the Universities had to be based on a single list and not two lists. This is not only according to a previous decision of the Supreme Court but also happens to be the only available practical course of action that could be followed.

It is to the credit of the UGC that it understood the problem early and took action in the form of appointing a committee of University Lecturers and Professors who had specialized in Statistics to advice the commission on the preparation of a common list. The committee came out with a formula to pool the two populations namely those of students who sat the examination in the new syllabus and of those who sat in the old syllabus. The first timers sat the new syllabus question papers while the repeaters sat the papers set in the old syllabus. The formula recommended by the committee of experts was accepted by the UGC that probably advised the Department of Examinations to calculate the Z scores in each subject and the mean Z scores of the students after pooling the two populations according to the formula. The teacher trade unions and the human rights vendors organized a campaign to blame the ministers concerned for adopting a method that was not resorted to in 2001 when there were two populations of students who sat for papers in new syllabus and old syllabus. They were eager to criticize the ministers and the government for political reasons and blamed the ministers for adopting a so called new method, when the latter were not involved in the process. However there was a difference in 2011, which again escaped the minds of some journalists with party loyalties as well as the teacher trade unionists and other parties, as the number of subjects was reduced from four to three in the new syllabus. In addition subjects such as Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Botany and Zoology that were tested under the old syllabus were not found under the new syllabus. Instead new subjects such as Combined Mathematics and Biology had replaced those subjects. Thus it was not possible to pool the populations in each subject as the subjects were different under the new syllabus and old syllabus at least in some cases. Hence I presume that the pooling was done not only after calculating the Z scores but also after finding the mean Z scores of the students. It has to be emphasized that it was a pooling of two populations and the students were selected to the Universities from the list of pooled mean Z scores. Without pooling students cannot be selected in each stream as one has to find ultimately a way of ordering the Z scores in one list.

There are different ways of pooling and the method that had been adopted by the UGC on the recommendation of the committee of experts was to pool and then calculate Z scores in each subject and compute the mean Z scores of students while in 2001 Prof. Thatil and others had recommended to calculate the Z scores in each subject separately for the new syllabus and old syllabus and find the mean Z scores of students first and then pool to prepare a common list from which admissions were made. In 2001, there would have been a reason for adopting the method of Prof. Thatil and others (It has to be remembered that Prof. Thatil only introduced the Z score standardization to Sri Lanka and not derived the Z score formula as some people believe) as the subjects were not common in the two syllabi. In 2011, there was no such problem and the UGC has to be commended for appointing a committee of experts to find other ways of pooling. I do not agree with the committee of experts on the formula suggested by them as it is not correct but I agree with the committee and the UGC that the pooling should have been done before Z scores were calculated.

As I have argued many times in the newspapers pooling after calculating the Z scores assumes that the Z scores in different subjects are equivalent. In the case of different subjects such as Combined Mathematics and Chemistry perhaps the Sri Lankan experts have not struck a formula to scale the marks in different subjects, though this was practiced in some schools in the fifties and before, and we may excuse them for their unawareness. However, when the subjects are the same in the Old and the new syllabi they could have easily derived a formula to pool the two populations even if no such formula is found in a text book or in a research paper published in a peer reviewed journal which are sought after by the Sri Lankan academics, without resorting to a formula that is not correct.

In any event there is a problem with finding the Z scores of students in each subject first. I am not sure whether the committee of experts or Prof. Thatil who is also supposed to be an expert have taken this aspect into consideration. A distribution of Z scores is already what is known as a normal distribution, with a mean of zero and standard deviation of one and it is not possible to pool two such distributions with weights attached to them to come out with a unique weighted pooled normal distribution. Using a little bit of Algebra taught in schools, let us assume that we have two distributions of Z scores given by z1 and z2 and let us construct another distribution formed with weights a1 and a2 attached to the two distributions respectively. Then the new distribution is given by a1 z1 + a2 z2. It is easy to show that the mean of the new distribution is also zero. However, there are no unique values for a1 and a2 that make the standard deviation of the new distribution equal to one. a1 = 1 and a2 =1 is only one such solution and it is arbitrary as one cannot impose conditions to arrive at this particular solution, except that the Z scores are equivalent which is the assumption that Prof. Thatil has made. It is not the case as the students in the new syllabus and the old syllabus clearly constitute two different populations not only with respect to question papers, but also with respect to their attitudes, experience, preparedness etc. That is the reason for the selection of about 55% of the students to the universities from the repeaters. The moment one considers the Z scores of the two groups to be equivalent the percentages of students admitted to the universities from the repeaters drop drastically and I would not be surprised if hundreds of repeat students and their parents go to Supreme Court to seek justice and thus delaying the whole process of admission to the Universities not only this year but also in the years to come.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

The Z score and the Supreme Court Judgment - Nonpublished

The Supreme Court has decided that the Z scores of the students who sat the GCE (A/L) Examination in the new syllabus and the old syllabus should be calculated separately as the candidates belong to two different populations. While respecting the judgment, it has to be pointed out that the Supreme Court has not given instructions to the UGC on a method to admit students to the Universities. Whoever calculates the Z scores it is finally the UGC that decides on admission of students.

In this respect there is no other way than pooling the two populations and devising a scheme to admit students to the Universities from a common list. Even if the Z scores are calculated separately one has to admit students to the Universities from one list prepared according to “merit” notwithstanding what is popularly known as the district quota system. There are various schemes that can be adopted in preparing the common list. Whatever the method is adopted it is going to be arbitrary as even lists prepared according to Statistical formulae are also arbitrary.

Suppose the UGC decides to prepare one list after calculating the Z scores separately purely on “merit”. In such a case the student who has the best Z score in a particular stream will be placed first whatever the population he/she belongs to. Then the second place will go to the student with the next best Z score again irrespective of the population. Then the third place and so on. However what is assumed in this particular method of preparing one list is that the Z scores of the two populations are equivalent. That is the Z score of x in population A carries the same weight as the Z score x in population B. Now how does one know that the Z scores of the two populations are equivalent?  

Then there is the suggestion that a certain percentage of students in a particular stream should be from the population of students who sat for the examination in the new syllabus and the balance from those who repeated the examination. The percentages will not be the same for different streams but then there is again the problem of determining the percentages. Would it be based on the average of percentages of students admitted in the previous five years, ten years or what? In any event it also amounts to a pooling of students on some arbitrary Statistical basis and then compiling a common list.

The populations of students were different not only in the GCE (A/L) examination held in 2011 but also in the previous years. Though all students sat the same question papers in any particular subject in the previous years there were differences in quality of students with respect to those who sat first time and those who repeated the examination. Strictly speaking they belonged to two populations, though they were considered as one population for the calculation of the Z scores. Thus the students were considered to be of the same quality. In 2011 the repeat students were given different question papers and effectively they were sitting for a different examination. If the UGC decides to prepare the common list on a percentage basis depending on Statistics how would it account for the introduction of two sets of papers which was not the experience of the previous years. Then of course there are other problems such as the equivalence of the Z scores in different subjects that I had discussed in a previous article.

The expert committee appointed by the UGC came out with a formula to pool the two populations by first calculating a common variance and then finding the Z scores of the candidates. I do not agree with the formula as it is based on another formula for the calculation of variance of samples but a better a formula can be arrived at considering the populations themselves.

Once the Z scores are calculated separately as ordered by the Supreme Court for the two populations, in order to compile a common list it is also possible to derive a formula for a “common list Z score” as pooling is essential in admitting students to the Universities. Depending on the method of pooling different sets of students would be admitted to the Universities and there may be a series of court cases unless all stakeholders get together and arrive at a satisfactory solution.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Z Score then and now

It is very often said that when Z score scaling process was introduced in 2001 there was no problem and the Supreme Court agreed with the scheme proposed by the Educational Authorities but now a problem has arisen due to the pooling of populations advocated by a panel of “experts” in Statistics. In 2001 Z scores of individual candidates were added and then taken the mean dividing by four or three depending on the number of subjects that the candidate had sat.

As has been mentioned previously Z scores in different subjects can be compared but that does not make them equivalent and a Z score of x in a subject A is not equivalent to the same Z score of x in subject B. Nevertheless the University admissions are based on Z score and we will stick to the Z score scaling process for the time being.

Scaling of marks is usually done when the populations are different. The differences in populations could arise due to various reasons. The students sitting for two different subjects belong to two different populations and similarly students sitting for either the old syllabus or the new syllabus in the same subject have to be considered as belonging to two different populations.

Under normal circumstances (say from 2004 to 2010) when in each year the subjects were the same and the syllabi had not been changed the differences in the populations arose mainly as a result of degree of hardness of the question papers in each subject, though strictly speaking the degree of hardness in each paper of the same subject also had to be taken into account, assuming of course that there was no difference between say the quality of the students sitting the examination in different subjects. In such years assuming that the Z scores are equivalent the individual Z scores of a candidate in each subject may be added and then the mean can be calculated for the purpose of ranking of students.

However, when the syllabi are changed there is another difference in the populations that has to be taken into consideration. It is due to the fact that in each subject there are two different populations sitting the examination, one in the new syllabus and the other in the old syllabus. The first group consists of students sitting for the first time and the second group sitting for the second or the third time. The quality of the students of the two groups is not the same and some remedial scaling process has to be adopted when such situations arise. The “expert” panel has come out with a procedure called pooling and they have suggested a formula to be adopted. It is not a formula of the UGC or the Examinations Department or the Ministries of Education and Higher Education but one that has been proposed by a panel of “experts” in Statistics. I myself have a difference of opinion on the formula though I am not an “expert” in Statistics by any stretch of imagination, but in principle I agree with the suggestion of a formula for pooling by the panel.

As has been suggested already, marks can be pooled and scaled first and then such scaled marks can be rescaled after de-pooling or regrouping, using the Z scores, if it is Statistically sound, thus taking into consideration both the differences in populations due to the quality of students and due to the degree of hardness of the subjects. In 2001, 2002 and 2003, as I understand, there was no way of first pooling and scaling taking into consideration the differences in quality of students as not only the number of subjects had been reduced from four to three but in certain cases subjects such as Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Botany and Zoology had been dropped altogether adding new subjects such as Combined Mathematics and Biology. In 2011 (and in 2012 and 2013) the subjects remain the same though the syllabi have been changed.

Nalin De Silva