Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) has expressed worry over poor performance of candidates in the 2018 Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations.
The 2018 MSCE results show that no candidate scooped an aggregate of six points with the highest getting seven points. Moreover, there is a high number of candidates failing science subjects.
According to results released by Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB), 2,324 candidates got zero percent in Mathematics, 406 candidates failed to get a single percentage point in Biology, 240 candidates got zero percent in Physical Science while 109 candidates failed Agriculture by getting zero percent.
Commenting on the development, CSEC has expressed worry saying the results call for an urgent solution to help candidates do better.
“While we are complaining that the pass rate is high, but we can see that the results show that candidates have failed the exams,” said Benedicto Kondowe, CSEC Executive director.
He however commended the improvement in pass rates for girls and boys as compared to previous years.
According to MANEB, 93, 469 female students sat for the examination in at least six subjects including English and 54, 325 candidates have passed the exams. This represents a 58.12 percent pass rate.
On male candidates, out of 103,817 who sat for the examinations, 70,430 have passed, representing a 67.83 percent pass rate.
Out of 197,286 candidates who sat for this year’s MSCE examinations, 124,745 candidates have qualified for the award of the certificate, representing a 63.23 percent pass rate.
The 2018 exams were marred with irregularities as some candidates were reported to have been cheating and there were also cases of exam leakage.
