GASAB0 - An estimated 88.9 percent of all the candidates who sat for National Examinations last year, have passed, the Rwanda National Examinations Council (RNEC), announced yesterday as it published the exam results.

Among 38,928 candidates, 34,602 passed and are eligible for certificates.

The performance was described as ‘interesting’ by both the Executive Secretary of the RNEC, John Rutayisire, and the State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Théoneste Mutsindashyaka.

"It is clear that the students’ performance for last year is better if compared to that witnessed in the previous years,” Mutsindashyaka commented after receiving the results at RNEC offices yesterday.

RNEC said that 19.7 percent of the students who passed the exams with high marks will be enrolled in public institutions of higher learning, to continue their studies where they will fill 7,672 available places for a possible government funding.

The other students will have to join private institutions or vocational training centres to continue with more training as private students.

"Government would actually receive more students among those who successfully passed the exams if it had more institutions of higher education,” the State Minister said as he explained that, ‘not going to a public institution’ should not be understood as a failure to pass the exams.

The two officials were also impressed by the girls’ performance in the exams which they rated as better compared to previous years.

While 48 percent of all the candidates were females, 85.8 percent of them successfully passed the exams.

RNEC was lauded for carrying out the testing with professionalism and transparency where its staff marked students under ‘codes’ and were ineligible to identify the names of candidates they were marking.

But Rutayisire said the institution had to overcome challenges it encountered as a result of the ongoing reforms that began last year to harmonise the country’s education system with that of the whole East-African Community (EAC).

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