A/L cut-off marks: Arts at the heart

Arts stream candidates comprised more than 25% of students who gained university admission according to the cut-off marks for the 2021 GCE Advanced Level exams released on Friday.

The university admission cut-off points were given four months after the exam results were released. The 2021 A/L exams were postponed repeatedly, and were finally held in February and March this year.

The exam results were released in August, after almost six months. Moreover, this year, the cut-off points were given before the marks from the exam recorrections were released.

University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Sampath Amaratunge said this was because the Cabinet decided to allow the UGC to handle university admissions before the re-scrutinised results were

released.

Accordingly, from the 91,115 candidates who applied to universities this year, 41,228 candidates gained admission. Vacancies were also allocated for additional intakes and special intakes, and 11,314 of these candidates belong to the Arts stream.

This number was followed by; the Biological Science stream with 9,749 students, the Physical Science stream with 8,020 students, the Commerce stream with 7,701 students, the Engineering Technology stream with 2,236 students and the Bio-systems Technology stream with 1,543 students. The remaining 665 students were allocated to other streams.