Grade 12 results announced

Grade 12 results announced

Lusaka, February 15, ZANIS —The Ministry of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education has announced the 2012 grade 12 joint School certificate and General certificate results.

Announcing the results at the Ministry headquarters today, Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education Minister John Phiri disclose that out of the 103,853 candidates who sat for the 2012 grade 12 examination 60,318 obtained full School certificate and 41,307 obtained the General Certificate of Education while 2,227 failed the examination.

Dr Phiri further disclosed that out of the 60,319 who obtained full School certificates 35,453 were males and 24,866 were females.

The Minister said the percentage of the candidates who obtained full School certificates has decreased compared to 59.87 percent in 2011 to 58.08 percent in 2012 with a marginal drop of 1.79 percent.

However, The Minister revealed that the number of candidates who sat for the grade 12 examinations in 2012 has increased to 98.1 percent compared to 97.7 percent in 2011.

He attributed the increase of candidates who sat for the grade 12 examinations to good policies initiated by the government such as re-entry, bursary schemes for the vulnerable and improved learning environments arising from the supply of school desks.

Dr Phiri also cited the improved teacher pupil ratio following the regular teacher recruitment and deployment by the ministry.

Meanwhile, Dr Phiri revealed that out of the 41,307 candidates who obtained General Certificate of Education, 21,924 were males while 19,383 were females.

He explained that the number of candidates who obtained General Certificate Education has increased to 39.77 percent in 2012 compared to 38.5 percent in 2011making an increase of 1.27 percent.

In a related development, Dr Phiri announced that out of the 2,227 candidates who failed the examinations, 1,252 were males and 975 were females representing a 2.14 percent failure rate.

He stated that the failure rate has decreased by 0.56 percent over that of 2011 which stood at 1.58 percent.

The Minister attributed the increase of the failure rate to lack of commitment by candidates who sat for the examination.

On candidate’s absenteeism, Dr Phiri said the rate of absenteeism has decreased by 0.42 percent compared to 2011 when the rate stood at 2.28 percent.

Dr Phiri also said out of the 1,972 candidates who were absent, 1,084 were males while 888 were females.

And on examination malpractices, the Minister said 316 cases were recorded in 2012 showing an increase compared to 267 cases of examination malpractices in 2011.

Meanwhile the Ministry of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education says it is concerned with the performance of the grade 12 candidates who sat for the joint School certificate and General certificate results.

Dr Phiri said the pass performance of 40 percent was worrying to the ministry and he has since directed the Directorate of Open and Distance Education to speed up the implementation of the alternative secondary school programme which is being carried out by the Zambia College of Distance Education in Luanshya.

He explained that the modules will cover all subjects from grade 8 to 12 adding that the modules will make it easier for the pupils to read ahead of the examination.