South Sudan to release secondary exam results in three weeks

JUBA – South Sudan’s Ministry of General Education and Instruction will release Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) exam results in three weeks, following a delay in marking the scripts due to lack of funds.

The ministry said it has now received some of the money needed for the task. Nearly 45,000 students nationwide took the CSE exam in December, but the scripts have remained unmarked.

“The marking of secondary school certificate which has delayed, the reason for delay is obvious that we did not receive the necessary funding for marking the examination. We were ready and we invited the teachers from ten states and three administrative areas, they were here for the last two months but we could not proceed with the marking because of lack of funding,” said Martin Tako Mayi, Deputy Minister of General Education and Instruction said on Monday.

“We have received part of the funding for marking the examination. We are grateful to the President of the Republic, the Vice President for Service Cluster and minister of finance for trying their level best to see to it that the examination papers are marked. It is true that lack of marking the examination as well as releasing the results is a challenge and it has interfered with our academic year,” he added.

The Deputy Minister assured that the marking will be completed and results released within three weeks. He also announced that first-term holidays for students will be shortened to just one week in light of the delay and to accommodate upcoming elections.

“We will do our best to mark the examination within a limit of three weeks. Within three weeks we will produce the results because we have been alert and ready just waiting for the funding. We will also from here declare to all the schools in the Republic of South Sudan that the holidays for the first term will only be a week so that the schools can catch up with learning,” he said.

“We have a lot of programs ahead of us which may interfere with our normal academic functions this year. We also have the elections in December so we have a crash program so that the syllabus can be finished within the academic year,” Tako added.

Tako further noted that the ministry arrested a school administrator in Juba for continuing to teach after the government ordered schools closed due to a heatwave.

“I want to inform the public, the parents that they should take proper care of their children when we announced that we are closing schools for a particular issue which is dangerous for the children they should adhere to this,” he indicated.

“We arrested a headmaster of a school, we could have closed the school but for the sake of our children learning in that school we arrested the administration for failing to adhere to closing of the school. They continued which could have endangered lives of the children learning,” he concluded.