General Education Minister David Mabumba has announced the release of the 2019 grade nine external examinations and General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination results, revealing a 69.92 per cent pass rate.

And Mabumba says government will no longer print a statement of results in line with the demands of the Smart Zambia Initiative.

Rendering a Ministerial statement in Parliament, Thursday, Mabumba said 55,721 representing 69.92 per cent passed the grade nine examination out of the 79,690 that sat for the examination, representing an increase of eight percentage points from 35,688, translating to 61.94 per cent who passed the examination in 2018.

“These two examinations were designed to give opportunity to those that wish to improve their grades after they did not do well after their first attempt. In Grade nine external exams, a total of 83,640 candidates entered the 2019 examinations out of which 38,935, which represents 46.55 per cent were boys and 44,705, which represent 53.45 percent, were girls. Out of the 83,640 that entered for the examinations, 79,690, which represents 95.28 per cent sat the 2019 exams of whom 37,123, representing 46.5 per cent, were boys and 42,567, which represent 53.42 were girls. Candidature increased by 22,524 from 61,116 candidates in 2018 to 83,640 in 2019,” Mabumba explained.

“Absenteeism reduced from 5.72 per cent in 2018 to 4.72 per cent in 2019. The reduction in the number of candidates that absenteed themselves from the examination is an indication of how seriously the candidates took the examination and a reflection of the desire of our people to improve their lives. In terms of performance, 55,721 representing 69.92 per cent passed the examination out of the 79,690 that sat for the examination, representing an increase of eight percentage points from 35,688, representing 61.94 per cent who passed the examination in 2018. A total of 23,969, representing 30 per cent failed the examination. When disintegrated by gender: 10,658, representing 44.47 per cent of the candidates that failed were male, while 13,311 representing 55.53 per cent of the candidates that failed were female.”

Mabumba noted that in the GCE exams, the number of registered candidates reduced by 0.6 per cent.

“Mr Speaker, allow me turn my attention to the 2019 GCE results. A total of 127,456 registered from the examinations of whom 42,060 were male and 85,396 were female. The number registered candidates reduced by 0.6 percentage points from 128,156 in 2018 to 127,456. A total of 96,019 candidates obtained GCE certificates, representing a decrease of 13 percentage points from 94 per cent in 2018. Of the 96,019 a total of 31,682 were male, while 64,337 were female,” he said.

And Mabumba announced that government will no longer print a statement of results in line with the demands of the Smart Zambia Initiative.

He also disclosed that 94 cases of examination malpractice were reported during the two examinations.

“In line with the demands of Smart Zambia Initiative, I wish to inform the nation that the ECZ shall not print any statements of results. Schools or individual candidates will be able to download the statement of results free of charge. However, all statements of results must be verified by the ECZ before being used for any official purposes. The public must, however, note that the ECZ shall continue to print certificates for all those who successfully obtained them,” said Mabumba.

“During the conduct of the 2019 grade nine external exams, 94 cases of examination malpractice were reported, respectively. The cases were in form of smuggled unauthorized materials into the examination room assistance, impersonation, collusion and copying. These cases will be handled by the Council and its committees in the scheduled meetings. It is important to note that there was no case of reported leakages during the conduct of the two examinations,” said Mabumba.