Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said yesterday that his ministry also plans to increase the Commerce stream students to 35 per cent while reducing the arts students to 25 per cent with the addition of more valuable subjects to the stream.
Currently, 55 per cent of the students follow the arts stream, while the rest study in the Commerce, Bio Science and Mathematics streams.
In 1995, only 19.5 per cent passed the GCE (Ordinary Level) examination and last year it increased to 65 per cent due to various projects initiated by the ministry, he said.
However, the minister said, last year too, 118,000 and 85,000 students failed the mathematics and science subjects at the GCE (O/L) examination respectively. 11,100 students failed all subject at the examination, Gunawardena said adding that 542,260 students sat the GCE (O/L) 2012.
"We expect to reduce the percentage of failures and increase the qualifiers at both O/L and A/L examinations," he said. Extract from Island