Pupils parade at a primary school in Aweil Center of NBGs before the start of 2023/2024 PLE examination. (-)

Education ministers in Abyei and Ruweng administrative areas have blamed the poor performance in the nation-wide Certificate of Primary Examination (CPE) results on insecurity, climate change and influx of returnees.

Unity State emerged as the best performing state with 82.2 percent performance followed by Jonglei with 77.2 percent and Warrap State with 75.2 percent, the exam results released on Wednesday.

It is the second time the oil-rich state has ranked number one followed by Jonglei State and Warrap State in those two years.

The top three states are followed by Greater Pibor, Northern Bhar el Ghazal, Central Equatoria, Lakes, Western Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria and Upper Nile respectively.

Meanwhile Ruweng and conflict-affected Abyei Administrative Area became the worst performing regions in country as Upper Nile State ranked third bottom of the list.

Abyei Minister of Education Nyinkwany Aguer said insecurity in the area contributed to the poor performance.

According to him, the Ministry had to relocate candidates two days before the exams to two examination centers due to insecurity he said, caused stress and panic among the pupils.

“As you are all aware that Abyei has been under conflict and displacement. The situation was very bad and even that day we had to move two centers to Abyei town before the exams kick off due to insecurity,” he said.

“The pupils were under pressure, and they were panicking and not settled so the conflict is one of the factors that contributed. The other one is that most of the teachers are senior 4 so most of them are volunteers.”

Recurrent armed attacks by armed groups in the Abyei Administrative Area since December 2023, have killed nearly 100 people, including Abyei deputy chief, and wounded dozens of others.

For his part, Ruweng Education Minister Santo Luol said the climate change and the influx of the returnees and refugees to the area resulted in the overcrowding of classes which affected the performance of the pupils.

“You may know that the area is very bad, there are refugees in the area some are coming from areas that has problem.”

“This is one of the factors the hug number and then the climate. to address the challenges, they have to separate the centers of the refugees who are sitting in the area and to have separate exams with supervision.”