GAZETTE REPORTER
The Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) has released the 2022 Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE) Results. A total of 46 835 candidates sat for the examination showing an increase of about 1.3% in candidature compared to 46 232 candidates in 2021.
In a statement released on Tuesday evening, the overall pass rate for the 2021 JCE cohort is 78.10% compared to 79.02% in 2021. A total of 22 998 (49.1%) male candidates and 23 837 (50.9%) female candidates sat for the 2022 Junior Certificate Examination.
“Overall performance of government schools only for the 2022 JCE cohort indicates that the proportion of candidates obtaining pass grades (Grades E or better) is at 86.00% compared to 84.50% in 2021, indicating an insignificant improvement of 1.50%. The proportion of candidates obtaining credit grades (Grades C or better) is at 36.80% compared to 35.70% in 2021, indicating an insignificant improvement of 1.10%. It could therefore, be concluded that the performance of 2022 government school candidates is at the same level as that of 2021,” reads part of the statement released by BEC.
The examinations council further noted a decline in candidates who obtained a merit result compared to the previous year. BEC recorded just 7 merits while in 2021, 14 students attained the same grade. “The seven (7) candidates are spread around seven (7) different examination centres across the country. Only one (1) candidate obtained grade A in all of their nine (9) syllabuses compared to five (5) candidates in the previous year.”
The performance for all 2022 JCE candidates (including private candidates) indicates that the proportion of candidates obtaining pass grades (Grade E or better) is at 78.10% compared to 79.02% in 2021, showing an insignificant decline of 0.92%.
“This indicates that the pass rate for the 2022 cohort is at 78.10%. The proportion of candidates obtaining credit passes (Grade C or better) is at 32.73% compared to 32.56% in 2021, showing an insignificant improvement of 0.17%. The proportion of candidates obtaining Grade A in 2022 is 1.04% compared to 1.17% in 2021 and that of candidates obtaining Grade B went down by 0.16% from 9.03% in 2021 to 8.87% in 2022. An insignificant increase of 0.48% has been noted at Grade C, a slight decrease of 0.71% noted at Grade D and a slight decrease of 0.38% noted at Grade E. The proportion of candidates who failed to meet the minimum requirements of Grade E, therefore assigned a U, increased by 1.14% from 14.59% in 2021 to 15.73% in 2022 while those assigned an X decreased by 0.22% from 6.39% in 2021 to 6.17% in 2022,” concludes the press release.
Teachers Unions could not comment on the JCE performance as they said they were still analyzing the results.