Girls Outperform Boys In PSLE

Pini Bothoko | Monday December 9, 2019 12:45

They outperformed their male counterparts in all subjects with the overall results indicating good performance by learners in PSLE.

Updating Parliament following the release of the results on Friday, the Minister of Basic Education, Fidelis Molao said the overall performance recorded an increase of 1.55 percent from 72.72% in 2018 to 74.33% in 2019 for candidates who obtained credit grades of A, B and C.

Molao stated that a total of 47, 518 candidates sat for the 2019 examinations, which is an increase in candidature of 2.34 percent compared to the 2018 cohort of 46, 432. Molao said the percentage of candidates obtaining grade A this year has gone up by 1.55 percent from 19.26% to 20.81%.

However, the education minister said there has been a slight decrease of 1.05 percent from 19.14% in 2018 to 18.09% at grade B while at grade C the same percentage of 1.05 percent was recorded as an increase. He highlighted a decrease of 0.46% from 19.58% in 2018 to 19.12% in 2019 for the pass grades of D and E.

“There has also been a decrease of 1.1 percent from 7.54 percent to 6.43 percent at grade E. However, this is a welcome development where a lower number of candidates are awarded pass grades and more were awarded credit grades.”

Molao stated that the South East region topped other regions with 84.65% followed by North East at 83.63% and Chobe region on the third position with 77.43%.

“Ghanzi despite being the least performing region with 54.81%, it should be noted that the region has improved by 2.44 percent from the 2018 performance of 52.37%. I am gratified that all the regions performed above 50% in the PSLE, this is a commendable effort,” he said. The minister commended teachers for their commitment and dedication in improving learners’ performance despite the challenges they face. He assured teachers that the education ministry would do its best in improving teachers’ welfare, teaching and learning environment.

Molao said it was worth noting that PSLE is a diagnostic examination meant to provide feedback to the education system as it measures candidates’ academic performance against curriculum standards.

He stated his Ministry was also intensifying the integration of ICT in teaching and learning to deliver learners who are ready for the 21st century global demands.

For their part, Members of Parliament (MPs) commended teachers for the good results. The MPs further stated that teacher/student ratio remains a challenge and pleaded with government to look into it as it contributes to learners’ poor results.

They went on to implore government to consider rolling out reception classes in all government schools and its duration to be increased from 12 months to 24 as it prepares pupils for mainstream learning.