The Ministry of Education on Thursday released the results of the 2022/2023 Certificate of Secondary School Examinations in which Eastern Equatoria State emerged as the best-performing state followed by Central Equatoria State.
While announcing the results in Juba, Martin Tako, the deputy minister of Education and General Instruction, said the pass rate this year was 95.3 percent which represents a 3.1 percentage increase from last year’s 92.2 percent.
The examinations were written at 398 examination centers across the country from 20 to 24 March 2023 by 36, 150 candidates out of who 23,300 were male and 12,804 female.
According to Tako, 2,624 candidates sat for the examination in Eastern Equatoria State and the performing index was 74.8, followed by Central Equatoria State which had 13, 901 candidates with a performing index of 74.3 to become the top leading states respectively.
“Number three was Northern Bahr el Ghazal State which had 1,997 candidates with a performing index of 72.5 followed by Lakes States with 1,874 candidates and a performing of index 75,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jonglei State which has been topping performance in the examinations for the last few years emerged fifth with 1,403 candidates but with a performing index of 7.5.
“Number six, Western Bahr el Ghazal which had 2,891 candidates and a performance index of 71.3, number seven, Warrap State with 1,805 candidates and a performance index of 70.4,” he announced. “Number eight, Western Equatoria State with 1,336 candidates and a performing index of 7.4, number nine, Unity State with 892 candidates and a performing index of 69.4, number ten, Abyei Administrative Area which had 892 candidates with a passing index of 63.4, and number eleven is Pibor Administrative Area with 38 candidates and a performing index of 59.7 respectively.”
“Number 12, Upper Nile State with 1,649 candidates and a performance index of 69.5, and lastly, Ruweng Administrative Area which had 1487 candidates and a performance index of 59.4,” Deputy Minister Tako added.
He said there were 3,459 internally displaced candidates with a 72.7 performance index.
The total number of candidates who sat examinations was 35, 521 and the performance index is 71.7.
According to Tako, the best-performed subjects were chemistry, biology, commerce, principles of accounts, Christian religious education, computer science, citizenship, additional mathematics, fine art, and agriculture.
“Unfortunately, the performance of Arabic language and English literature is very poor,” he said. “Our official language is English but unfortunately the performance is not so good.”
The deputy minister said that although the best-performing schools are from Central Equatoria State, the candidates were from all over the country.
“You have seen that a lot of the schools which performed well are from Central Equatoria State but this does not mean that all the candidates are from Central Equatoria,” he explained. “These schools are in Central Equatoria but the candidates are South Sudanese from all the states in our country. So, it should not be confused that Central Equatorian citizens have performed better than other states.”
“Most people invested in Central Equatoria because of the relative peace here during the crisis,” Tako added.