‘JCE exam results best in 5 years’ | THERESA CHAPULAPULA

Monday, 07 December 2009
Source: The Daily Times (Malawi)


Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) has described this year’s 67 percent pass rate as the best for the past five years. Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) has described this year’s 67 percent pass rate as the best for the past five years.

The number of failures in this year’s Junior Certificate of Examinations (JCE) has been reduced to 23 percent from last year’s 47 percent.

“Of the 107,054 candidates who sat for this year’s examination, 72,056 have qualified for the award of the Junior Certificate of Education. This represents a 67.30% pass rate,” a statement from Maneb reads.

Maneb attributes the good pass rate to “many” government interventions including additional graduate teachers to both community day and conventional secondary schools.

The organisation says other reasons are supply of more teaching and learning materials and in-service training, just to mention some.

“Five candidates have been disqualified in the examinations for contravening Maneb regulations, the letter ‘X’ appears against the names of such candidates,” the statement says.

It states that where the letter ‘N’ appears, it indicates that the candidates have not been graded in that subject because of failure to satisfy the Board’s regulations regarding that subject.

“The results of some candidates are being withheld pending further investigations in connection with examination malpractices or entry anomalies. The letter ‘W’ appears against the names of such candidates.

“All candidates are informed that their results will be available at the centres where they registered and all candidates wishing to query their results should do so in writing through their heads of school,” the statement concludes.

However, the good results will, however, leave some private secondary schools students seeking for Form three space, as government has closed some of their schools.

The Ministry of Education has closed 628 private schools out of 880 in the country.

Reacting to the results, Policy and Advocacy Director for Link for Education Governance Andrew Usi congratulated all stakeholders whom, he said, had played a role to ensure that the pass rate improves.

“But we still need to work hard on training teachers. Out of 11,397 teachers in secondary schools, only 4,269 are qualified, representing 37 percent. We still have a long way to go,” he said.

President of Private Schools Association of Malawi (Prisam) John Msosa said it was unfortunate that the school calendar starts at a time when the association and government have not yet agreed anything on the closure of some private schools.

The school calendar starts today.