The school attendance of a student requesting to postpone the Advanced Level exam due to the Wednesday holiday is 7.2 percent.

The Court of Appeal has announced that the decision on whether to grant permission to hear the petition filed by a group of students requesting an order to postpone the upcoming G.C.E. Advanced Level examination by two months will be declared on the 23rd of this month. This petition was considered before a bench comprising Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysooriya and Justice Priyantha Fernando.

In this petition filed by nine students who are scheduled to appear for the G.C.E. Advanced Level examination for the first and second time this year, the Secretary to the Ministry of Education and others have been named as respondents.

Attorney-at-Law Bhupathi Kahathuduwa, appearing for the petitioners, submitted to the court that the mandatory number of school days, as per the circulars of the Ministry of Education, has not been completed this year. He pointed out that due to the fuel crisis in the country and the government's decision to grant school holidays on Wednesdays due to the 'Ditwa' cyclone, academic activities did not proceed properly. He further requested that if the examination is held as planned in August under such circumstances, students would suffer severe prejudice, and therefore, a writ order should be issued to invalidate the currently published G.C.E. Advanced Level examination timetable and postpone the examination by two months.

Meanwhile, Solicitor General Viraj Dayaratne, appearing for the respondent party, informed the court that although 378,000 students have registered for this year's G.C.E. Advanced Level examination, only nine students have come before the court requesting a postponement of the examination. He also pointed out that while an 80% school attendance is generally required to sit for an examination, the attendance of one of these petitioning students was recorded at a very low level of 7.2%, and the attendance of the others was around 50% and 53%.

The Solicitor General emphasized that it is questionable for a group of students who have not even properly participated in school educational activities to claim that they do not have enough time to prepare for the examination, and that they have not come before the court with clean hands and have concealed facts. He also stated that if the examination is postponed, it would severely hinder students' future activities, including university admissions. The bench, having considered the submissions made, ordered both parties to take steps to file any written submissions related to this case before next Monday, and informed that the order on whether to grant permission to hear the petition will be declared on the 23rd of this month.