More than 200 pupils in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) in South Sudan will sit for the 2022 Certificate of Primary Education (PLE) examinations scheduled for Monday.
Officials there said several pupils in the conflict-affected counties of Gumuruk and Likuangole wll miss out on the national examinations. i
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj Friday, Simon Gayin, the GPAA education minister, said they have prepared to deliver the CPE exams despite the effect of insecurity.
He said about 38 candidates from Gumuruk and Likuangole have been relocated to Pibor town because schools there were destroyed in the recent violence.
“The inter-communal violence in January and December affected Likuangole and Gumuruk. As a government, we decided to relocate the students there to Pibor town because all centers were destroyed and this is national examinations, pupils can not take their exams under trees,” Gayin said.
“A total of 235 pupils have been registered to sit for the exams in the entire GPAA. In Likuangole, 25 pupils were registered but only 17 pupils are relocated to Pibor. While in Gumuruk, we registered 30 pupils and I learned that today (Friday) 21 arrived in Pibor town. The whereabouts of 17 candidates are not known. Centers in Jebel Boma and Pochalla are not affected, the exams will be taken there,” he pointed out.
For his part, Abraham Kelang, GPAA’s information minister, said the recent violence in parts of GPAA paralyzed learning and called on aid agencies operating in the country to come to their aid to overcome the looming humanitarian crisis.