By William Madouk
South Sudan National Examination Council (SSNEC) has released 2023 Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) examinations results with 17, 691 failure students to repeat.
Addressing a press conference at the release of the exam results, the Minister of General Education and Instruction, Awut Deng Acuil, who also chairs the SSNEC, said the performance had declined compared to previous years.
The minister revealed that the ministry of education had adopted a “letter grading system” in line with the country’s new curriculum, which contributed to the overall lower performance.
“The National Examination Council effectively decided to transit from using numerical percentage grades to letter grades,” said Awut.
According to the minister, the shift offers clearer and more intuitive feedback to candidates and stakeholders, aligned with curriculum standards and enhance fairness in the evaluation process.
The Sectary-General for the National Examination Council, Simon Nyok said out of 44,131 candidates, only 26,440 passed and qualified for varsity admission.
“Out of 44,131 candidates, 26,440 (16,633 males, 9,807 females) managed to obtain the minimum university entry qualification (grade C and above) and hence do qualify for progression to universities,” he announced.
“While 17,691 (11,264 males, 6,427 females) could not make it, unfortunately,” he added.
According to Nyok, the passing percentage stood at 59.9% (plain C) compared to 95.3% in the previous year, which he attributed to the sealing of paper leaks and exam malpractices.
“This decline can be attributed to controlled exam malpractices in the 2023 CES examinations,” he noted.
Based on the results, female candidates have outshined males with 60.4% to 59.9% in the academic section.
However, the three compulsory subjects, such as Citizenship, Christian Religion Education (CRE) and Maths are among the poorly performed with 52.8, 46.8, and 43.2 percent, respectively.
The public is urged to obtain the official results from schools where learners wrote their exams or state and area coordinator offices.
Performance table shows that only 12 students got plain A, 513 A-, 1,792 B+, 2,883 got plain B.
Meanwhile, 3,481 obtain B-, 3,960 C+, 3,993 C, with 3,788 C-, 3,056 D+, including 2,353 D, 1,624 D- and 443 E.
The examination was written between 4 and 16 December 2023, where about 45,666 were initially registered across the country, but 969 failed to turn up for exams, bringing the total to 45,433 candidates.
Yet, out of 45,433 candidates, 967 also failed to turn up for exams, 28 cases of cheating leading to cancellation of their results, and 8 others failed to follow the registration criteria, bringing the total of candidates who successfully sat for exams to 44,131.