Primary school results show higher 'B'

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Friday November 19, 2010 00:00

However, the performance of the pupils who obtained Grade E has not changed.

The Standard Seven examination, unlike the Junior Certificate and BGCSE examinations for the Form 5s, is multiple choice whereby the pupils tick the correct answers.

The Botswana Examinations Council yesterday said in a press release that a total of 41 524 candidates wrote the examination, a decrease of 1.64 percent from 2009.

Of this number 6 272 or 15.1 percent obtained Grade A, 7 850 or 18.9 percent, Grade B, and 14 692 (35.4 percent) Grade C, 12 145 (29.3 percent) Grade D, 540 (1.3 percent).

One, Grade E, and 24 candidates were ungraded.  Performance in this year's examinations shows a slight decline at Grade A with 15.1 percent of the candidature awarded this grade compared to 15.3 percent in 2009. 

The proportion of candidates awarded grade B is 18.9 percent compared to 17.2 percent in 2009 showing a slight improvement at this grade.

 Also for this year, 35.4 percent of candidates obtained Grade C showing a slight decrease of  0.2 percent, while 29.3 percent obtained Grade D showing a slight decrease as compared to the  30.8 percent of the previous year.  The performance of candidates awarded Grade E has not changed from that of the previous year.

Overall, there is a slight increase in the percentage of candidates awarded Grades A to C, with 69.4 percent in 2010 compared to 68.2 percent in 2009.

The slight improvement above may be attributed to improvements in overall performance in English, Science, Social Studies and Religious and Moral Education.

Most district councils show some improvement in performance except Jwaneng, Lobatse, Kweneng and Kgalagadi.  The city and town councils performed better than the district councils.