The South Sudan Secondary School Examinations which were scheduled for January have been postponed to March, according to an announcement by the Ministry of General Education.

The education minister says the postponement is as a result of the slowed funding of the National Examinations Council to procure the logistics for the operation, among other reasons.

Deng Deng Hoc says the students were supposed to start sitting for the exams from the 9th of this month, but the exercise will now begin on the 6th March.

“…delay in transfer of money from the Ministry of the Finance to the account of the council and also from the accounts of the two companies that are supplying the National Examination Council with papers, ink and security envelop,” said the education minister, addressing a press conference in Juba on the 3rd January.

He says the distribution of examination papers to the different states will start immediately once they are printed.

Mr. Hoc also says the ministry will likely receive security envelops, papers sheets and ink by the end of this week, thereafter, about four to five weeks will be left for printing of the examinations.

However, the number of candidates to sit for this year’s examinations, according to the minister, is less compared to last year’s.

Mr. Hoc says students in the three states of Gok, Southern Lieth and Latjor have been exempted from writing the March exams.

The reason for the excuse is yet to be given.

According to Mr. Hoc, the approved count of candidates from the twenty-five states this year is “19,481; that is 13,637 boys and 5,844 girls”.

He says students under the Sudanese curriculum are welcome to write their examinations along with those doing the Sudan School Certificate Examinations.