FORM V RESULTS WORST IN PAST 6 YEARS

MBABANE – The 2023 EGCSE and IGCSE results are the worst in the past six years.

This follows a significant drop by 4.25 per cent and 8.25 per cent, respectively. The results showed a decline in the 2023 Eswatini General Certificate in Secondary Education (EGCSE) pass rate, which stands 88.33 per cent, when compared to the previous year (2022), where it was at 92.58 per cent.  The overall pass rate in the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) programme was 84.07, while in 2022 it was 92.32. However, pupils in the Eswatini Prevocational Certificate of Secondary Education Programme (EPCSE) did well, attaining a pass rate of 96.73 per cent, when compared to IGCSE and EGCSE.

Decline

There was a slight decline though of 3.08 per cent, when compared to 2022, where it stood at 99.81 per cent. Announcing the results, Minister of Education and Training Owen Nxumalo attributed the decline in the candidate performance to the dispositions in learning, which were encountered since 2019. Nxumalo stated that the 2023 cohort had been severely impacted by the school closures and other disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest. The minister further stated that candidates who sat the 2023 EGCSE, EPCSE and IGCSE examinations were in Form II in 2020 during the outbreak of the pandemic. In 2020, he said schools closed in March and there was no learning that took place thereafter, save for online lessons and those conducted on radio, which primarily prioritised learners doing external classes. “As you may all be aware, in 2020 learners in the country’s education system automatically progressed to the following class,” he said.

In 2021, Nxumalo said when the cohort was in Form III, teachers prepared them for the Junior Certificate (JC) examination and while they were at it, Eswatini experienced an unprecedented political unrest, which occurred at a time when the country was still grappling with COVID-19 and the school calendar was greatly affected. Again, he said, in 2022 when the same cohort was in Form IV, the school academic calendar began in April. This, he said, meant that even in Form IV, this group had little instructional time than they ideally should have had.   

The minister said the Examinations Council of Eswatini (ECESWA) had taken action to ensure that the candidates were not disadvantaged by circumstances beyond their control and to ensure that they achieved grades that reflected their ability, enabling them to move onto the next stage in their education. Nxumalo was quick to set the record straight that the decline was not a result of the resit, following the leakage of contents of some papers. According to the minister, a number of learners did not perform well even in subjects that were not affected by the resat examination papers. Worth noting is that the decline in performance has also been observed even with the IGCSE Examination, which from question development, marking and results processing, was handled by their accreditor, Cambridge University Press and Assessment. The minister said ECESWA took the decision to hold a resit session after careful consideration, adding that it was fair for all candidates to give them the opportunity to resit the papers, rather than estimating their performance based on their scores in other papers.

Option

He said the worst option was to cancel the examinations.  Of note, the minister stated that some of the candidates attained good grades in the resat papers. Furthermore, he highlighted that ECESWA had presented the results statistics as they were. He said; “The statistics are for the benefit of concerned stakeholders, who may want to ascertain the causes of the decline in the performance and possible interventions.” He also pointed out that the grading of the 2023 EGCSE/EPCSE results was conducted with guidance and support of a Cambridge University Press and Assessment  consultant, as part of the accreditation agreement. Nxumalo said international observers from Kenya and Zambia also attended the exercise, as part of validation to ensure the credibility of the results. This, he said, was an important stage in the processing of results across examining boards. 

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