The Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) is considering adding more national examination marking sites and teachers to further quicken the release of the exam results, as well as facilitate proper planning on the side of schools and parents. This was mentioned by the Minister of Education, Valentine Uwamariya, during a press conference that was officially announcing the national examination results for primary and ordinary level on September 27. The delay in announcing the results affects the planning and budgeting of parents, and also for those students who have repeated their classes they don’t report on time to catch up with others, she said. The Minister explained that this year, there was no delay since they tried to minimise the marking duration to 37 days while it usually takes between 40 to 45 days. “Although there was no delay, MINEDUC plans on putting efforts and strategies to ensure that the results take less time to be marked and registered. “Next year, we plan to use more marking centres and more teachers since the marking step takes longer, and we also take more time registering the marks. But we hope the next academic year will be much better,” she said. The results for O’ Level indicate that among the 126,735 candidates who sat for national exams, 108,566 passed which represents 85.66 percent. However, numbers have slightly decreased compared to last year’s results. Whereas for primary, out of 227,402 pupils who sat for national examinations, 206,286 candidates passed, which represents 90.6 per cent of the general passing rate. According to Christine Mahoro, a parent, announcing the results ahead of time gives parents enough time to plan and get the children ready for school. “Considering adding marking sites will not only help us get timely information, but also for the children who repeated the classes to report on time,” she said. Mahoro added that this doesn’t only help the students but the parents and schools too. Andrew Mutsinzi, a secondary student, said that the development will be a solution since it will be giving students enough time to file complaints about the results just in case they are not convinced with them. “Some students give up on filing complaints since there is a lot of pressure to report back to school and no sufficient time to go through the claiming process,” he said. According to the ministry, 21,186 students will repeat primary six and 18,369 will repeat senior three. The ministry announced that all candidates will start the new academic year on October 4, saying that there was enough time for students and their parents to start preparations.
