JC, PLSCE pass rates improve by 1%

The Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) in conjuction with the Ministry of education, Science and technology has released the 2014 Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) and the Primary School Leaving Certificate (PLSCE) examinations results which indicate an improvement of about one percent in pass rate compared to last year’s results.

According to a statement released yesterday, a total of 124 999 students sat for the JCE examinations and 91 539 have passed, representing a pass rate of 73.23 percent.This is a percent up compared to 2013 results in which 127 013 students  wrote the examinations and 91 510 passed, represent a 72 percent pass rate.

Maneb says 259 251 wrote the PLSCE examinations last year and 160 966 pupils passed, representing a 68.98 percent. The figures are not quite different from the 2013 results as 234 127 sat for the examinations with 158 667 passing to represent 67.77 percent pass rate.

Speaking in an interview, Civil Society Education Coalition (Cseco executive director Benedicto Kondowe said the slight improvement is an indication that the country is not making progress in providing quality education.

He said the expectation is that JCE should register over 85 percent pass rate and PLSCE over 90 percent as it only regards who has passed.

“We have a long way to go and we should not relax. The results show that the quality of our education is substandard. We need to sit down and find out why is this happening because there are a number of issues that contribute to this. Some of them are the methodology of examinations and the quality of the teachers,” said Kondowe.

The statement by Maneb says, out of those who have passed the PLSCE, 67 467 have been selected to various secondary schools and this represents a 41.9 percent selection rate.

“All candidates are informed that their results are available at the centres where they registered and all queries should be routed to Maneb through head teachers,” reads in part the statement which also advises all selected students to various secondary schools and those that have passed JCE to report for classes on September 14 for boarders and September 15 for day scholars.