A total 47,562 students have been admitted to Senior One and Senior Four for the new academic year that starts Tuesday.

The national selection of students who passed last year’s Primary Living and Ordinary Level examinations saw 12,610 students admitted for Senior One boarding secondary schools, while 34,952 were admitted to Senior Four.

In Senior One, 6,563 of the admitted students are girls, while 6,047 are boys who obtained the required cut off points of 20 and 18, respectively.

In A-Level, 17,889 of students are girls.

The cut off points for admission to A-Level were 55 and 47 for girls and boys, respectively.

Speaking to The New Times earlier this week, Emmanuel Muvunyi, the deputy director in charge of examinations at Rwanda Education Board (REB), said the selection process was transparent following the right student placement procedures.

"As usual, to give places in boarding schools was based on three things; the first being the aggregate of the students from the national examinations, the second being choices that the students made while they were filling registration forms for their exams and the third condition is the availability of places in that boarding school,” he said.

Results for Primary and Ordinary Level examinations 2016 indicated that out of a total of 160,357 candidates who sat for Primary Leaving Examinations, 84.82 per cent of the candidates passed, representing a 0.3 percent performance improvement compared to 84.50 per cent in 2015.

On the other hand, out of 84,868 students who sat for O-Level national exams, 74,036 passed, representing 87.24 per cent.

The student selection took place from January 18 to 23. School heads, REB, Workforce Development Authority, University of Rwanda College of Education and district administrations were part of the exercise.

New system

REB also introduced a system to enable students to locate the schools where they were admitted either online or by use of telephone lines.

This system was previously available for only checking examination results but it has been stretched to also cover the placements.

"Those who wish to know their schools of admission can use mobile phones or go online in the same way they used to follow their marks. On the phone, you send your code to 489. The number must be preceded by P6 or S3,” Muvunyi said.

For students unable to secure places in boarding schools, REB advised them to go to their respective district offices to be allocated places in day schools.

The official date for commencement of schools is February 2.

However, REB has cautioned that if a student fails to report by February 6, they would lose the place to the next student on the waiting list.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw