Minister of Education Douglas Siakalima has announced the official results of the 2021 Grade Seven and Grade Nine (9) Junior Secondary School Leaving Examinations (JSSLE).
According Mr. Siakalima, Zambia has recorded a slight progression rate at Grade 9 level which stands at 1.42%.
He said the 2021 Grade 10 national progression rate is 54.49 percent; an increase of 1.42 percent from the 53.07 percent attained in 2020 as all the 140,338 candidates who had obtained full Grade 9 Certificates progress to Grade 10.
At Grade 7 level, Mr. Siakalima announced that the 100% pass rate recorded last year has been retained as 257, 551 pupils sat for examinations.
“As Minister in charge of Education, I am pleased to inform the Nation today, that the Ministry of Education (MoE), working through the Examinations Council of Zambia (ECZ), has completed processing the results of the 2021 Grade Seven (7) Composite and Grade Nine (9) Junior Secondary School Leaving Examinations(JSSLE), respectively,” Mr. Siakalima said.
“A total of 457,950 candidates entered the 2021 Grade 7 Composite Examination, reflecting a decrease of 2.11 percent from 467, 834 candidates who had entered for the examination in 2020. Of the 457,950 candidates who entered the examination, 237,799 (51.93%) were girls and 220,151 (48.07%) were boys. Of the 457,950 candidates who entered the examinations, 409,441 candidates representing 89.41 percent sat the 2021 examination. 196,159 (49.91%) were boys and 213,282 (50.09%) were girls. More girls, both in absolute numbers and proportion, entered and sat the examination.”
“Let me now bring your attention to the progression to Grade 8 for the 2021 Grade 7 candidates: The 2021 Grade 7 national progression rate is 100 percent as was the case during the 2020 Grade 7 Examination. This means that all the 409, 441 candidates who had sat the 2021 Grade 7 Composite Examination will progress to Grade 8,” Mr. Siakalima said.
He added:”While 100 percent progression is good, the Ministry of Education is currently reviewing the policy of automatic progression to Grade 8 so that only learners who display the required competencies at this level progress.”
In the 2021 Grade 9 Internal Examination, Mr. Siakalima said the national absenteeism rate stood at 7.98 percent compared to the 2020 national absenteeism rate of 10.50 percent.
“Let me now bring your attention to the progression rate to Grade 10 for the 2021 Grade 9 candidates: The 2021 Grade 10 national progression rate is 54.49 percent, an increase of 1.42 percent from the 53.07 percent attained in 2020. Allow me to inform the Nation that all the 140,338 candidates who had obtained full Grade 9 Certificates progressed to Grade 10,” he said.
On examination malpractice cases, Mr. Siakalima said managing examinations without leakages is not an easy task.
“I am honoured to announce that, for the third year running, there were no reported leakages of examination question papers during the conduct of the 2021 Grade 7 Composite and Grade 9 Internal examinations. I therefore, wish to commend all stakeholders who took part in ensuring that the examinations were conducted leakage free.”
“However, a total of thirteen (13) individual malpractice cases and forty-eight (48) whole centre cases were recorded. The individual cases consisted of smuggling in of foreign materials and submission of two answer scripts for one candidate-essentially assistance, copying and collusion,” Mr. Siakalima said.
The 2022 Grade 8 and 10 classes will open on Monday 10th January, 2022, at the same time with the other grades with a grace period of two weeks for Grades 8 and 10 only which will end on Friday 21st January, 2022.
“The Ministry of Education is strongly appealing to all parents and guardians to adhere to this set date for opening of schools as learning will commence immediately schools open to make up for time lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With these remarks, I declare the 2021 Grade 7 Composite and 9 Internal Examinations results officially released,” Mr. Siakalima concluded.
Congratulations to my nieces and nephews who cleared. Uncle kaizer will buy you car each.
Absenteeism was caused by unnecessary school closures.
I may be such a negative person but why do exam results announced by the minister of education? Why not the ECZ or the technocrats, e.g. the Permanent Secretary? This politicisation of everything in Zambia is crazy?
Let him/her help define policy; provide enabling environment and funding and let the implementation be done by the responsible technocrats.
By the way how did COVID-19 affect the performance and these results?
Very confusing reporting around the ‘leaking’ and ‘malpractice’. ‘No reported cases’ doesn’t mean no leakages happened,.it just means they didn’t get caught. I think we also want reports around 5 percentiles of both highest and lowest performing students.
Gone are the days when exams and results really meant something to a student and their families… it was a big deal then and a showstopper (not sure it is still the same these days).
These statistics are very important but they’re not being used. For now let me deal with the 140,338 that have made it to grade 9. Almost all of these will progress to grade 12 and in 2024 they’ll be offloaded from the education system. Only about 20,000 will find space in tertiary institutions. In 10 years we’ll have 1.2M educated but unskilled school leavers on the streets. These are the youth in mobile money booths. If we don’t plan on how to deal with this then we’re sitting on a time bomb. It’ll soon explode