BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – The candidature increased in 2023, as pupils who sat for the Form V results increased by 16.87 percent, compared with the 2022 examinations.
Below are the facts about the 2023 results, compared with the 2022 ones:
Eswatini General Certificate of Secondary Education (EGCSE)
- The candidature increased by 16.87 percent from 16 537 in 2022 to 19 326 in 2023.
- The number of absentees decreased by 11.39 percent from 553 in 2022 to 490 in 2023.
- The 2023 national pass percentage declined from 92.58 percent in 2022 to 88.33 percent in 2023. This means the EGCSE pass rate declined by 4.25 percent in 2023.
Eswatini Prevocational Certificate of Secondary Education (EPCSE)
- EPCSE was examined for the third time in 2023 under the accreditation agreement with Cambridge. You will recall that the EPCSE programme is now equivalent with the EGCSE programme. So EPCSE graduates now compete equally with EGCSE graduates, according to Minister of Education and Training Owen Nxumalo.
- Despite all these, the programme continues to suffer from a very low candidature, yet it could be one of the solutions to the problem of youth unemployment in the Kingdom.
- Only 304 EPCSE candidates registered for the examinations in 2023. A total of 296 candidates eventually wrote the examinations in 2023.
- The overall pass rate for EPCSE declined to 96.73 percent in 2023 from 99.81 percent in 2022, which translates to a decline of 3.08 percent.
International General Certificate of Higher Education (IGCSE)
- The overall pass rate for IGCSE also drastically declined by 8.25 percent in 2023 when compared to 2022. The IGCSE pass rate for 2023 is 84.07 percent while in 2022, it was 92.32 percent.
