The Ministry of Women and Child Affairs has warned that punishing or mentally harassing a child over their Grade 5 Scholarship Examination performance is a punishable offence, issuing the appeal within hours of the results being released on Wednesday.
The Ministry urged parents and others to refrain from subjecting children to physical punishment or psychological distress on the basis of their marks.
It also asked media organisations and social media users to stop publicising examination results in ways that could leave children embarrassed, distressed or uncomfortable — a reference to the long-standing practice of naming and photographing district-level top scorers, and of circulating individual results online.
The Ministry said such conduct can amount to child abuse under existing child protection law, and that the maximum available legal action will be taken against those responsible.
Why the warning lands now
The appeal follows the release of this year’s results, which set the cut-off mark at 139. Around 56,000 candidates cleared it.
Close to 290,000 children sat the paper on August 9. On the Commissioner General’s own figures, the large majority therefore finished below the cut-off — the group the Ministry’s warning is aimed at protecting.
The examination determines admission to sought-after secondary schools, and the scale of private tuition built around it has made it a recurring subject of criticism from educationists and teacher unions. The Ceylon Teachers’ Union has separately argued that the wider school reform programme is not ready for rollout, and raised irregularity claims around this year’s sitting in Kegalle.
None of the three newsrooms reporting the appeal said whether any complaint has been received this year, or named the specific statute the Ministry intends to rely on.
