Secondary Four students parade before commencing their final exams. December 4, 2023, (Photo: Awan Moses)

Around 50,000 students are expected to start sitting for the South Sudan Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) examination in 525 centers across the country on Monday, December 2, according to a schedule announced by the education ministry.

The students including 28,551 males and 19,993 females will take the nine-day exams in science and art sections – with each category having seven compulsory and optional subjects.

The examination will start with Christian Religion Education and Islamic Religion and ends with Citizenship, Additional Mathematics and other technical subjects.

In a press conference announcing the timetable on October 2024, Deputy Minister of General Education Martin Tako said all preparations had been made for the secondary leaving exams.

“I take this opportunity to inform the candidates, parents and all stakeholders that all process of the 2024 examinations have been put in place and the examination administration dates have been fixed in accordance with rules and regulations guiding conduct of examinations in the country,” he said.

The Ministry of General Education said it has registered an increase of 3,613 students sitting for the Certificate of Secondary Education examinations in the 2024-2025 calendar, compared to last year.

More than 79,000 pupils – the highest number of primary school candidates ever recorded – have concluded the Certificate of Primary Education examination across South Sudan, which started on November 18.

South Sudan’s economic hardships severely impacted government expenditures across various institutions including the education ministry which struggles to mark annual examination papers on time in recent years.

The marking process of the 2023-2024 CSE examination took eight months of anxious wait by thousands of students and parents. But the results announced in August 2024 uncovered a historic poor performance that will see the lowest admission to universities.

Students who failed the last exams will likely struggle to retake the test as they only found out two four months into this year’s exams.