Urbanites maintain dominance in PSLE results

BABOKI KAYAWE
Staff Writer | Tuesday January 8, 2013 00:00

According to the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) summary report of the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC), compared to last year (2011), the proportion of candidates earning pass grades (grade A to C) in 2012, increased in nine local authorities except for Gaborone, Gantsi, Kgatleng, Lobatse and North East, which show a decline of 0.2 percent, 2.1 percent, 1.1 percent, 7.2 percent, and 3.0 percent respectively.Performance in the 2012 PSLE increased slightly from 12.9 percent in 2011 to 13.2 percent for grade A. Percentage of candidates who obtained grade B decreased slightly by 0.7 percent from 15.9 percent in 2011 to 15.2 percent in 2012.Candidates at grade C increased slightly to 36.6 percent in 2012 from 35.2 percent in 2011.

The proportion of candidates at grade D has increased from 32.7 percent (2011) to 34.4 percent (2012) while at grade E there was a decrease to 0.7 percent (2012) from 3.2 percent (2011). Furthermore, the report shows the highest proportion of candidates awarded grade A in English at 18.7 percent. The lowest proportion of candidates awarded grade A is in Agriculture at 1.1 percent. Setswana has the highest proportion of candidates at grade B with 40.9 percent compared to other subjects. Setswana also has the highest proportion of candidates awarded grade C at 43.7 percent compared to other subjects. 'Science has the highest proportion of candidates awarded grade D at 39.1 percent when compared to other subjects. Agriculture has the highest proportion of candidates awarded grade E with 42.8 percent,' the BEC says.

In addition, true to the trend in the past two years, the 2012 results indicate that girls performed better than boys across all subjects. Meanwhile, information reaching Mmegi indicates that some students started form one yesterday despite not knowing their PSLE results.However, the BEC spokesperson Charles Keikotlhae said subsequent to the release of the results, which were only accessible via the Internet and short message service (SMS), copies were also sent to schools. He added that the corrupted results were corrected as well  (For the first time in history, the PSLE saw grades such as 'z' thanks to technical glitches at the examinations council). In addition, he said stakeholders motivated the decision not to publicly broadcast the PSLE results. Interestingly, the kgotla was not used for consultations on the new move.'We have received feedback from stakeholders ranging from invigilators, parents and officials at the ministry concerning the effects of the public treatment of results,' he said. The BEC could not discuss when the Junior Certificate examinations results will be released, opting to discuss the issue at a media briefing scheduled for today. Traditionally, these results are released a week before Christmas.