156, 027 pupils make it to Grade 10

One hundred and fifty six thousand, twenty seven (156, 027) out of the 317, 972 pupils who sat for the Grade nine examinations this year have been selected to Grade ten.

And 340, 791 out of the 352, 631 pupils who sat for the Grade seven examinations have made it to Grade eight of whom 176,327 are boys and 167,464 girls, bringing the national progression rate to 96.64 percent from 90.05 percent in 2015.

Announcing the results in Lusaka today, General Education Minister, Dr. Dennis Wanchinga says of the 365,272 candidates that entered the for the grade 9 examination,317,972 sat for the examination of whom 160,946 were boys and 157,026 were girls representing an increase of 39,788 from the 278,184 who sat the 2015 examination.

He says of the 156,027 candidates that have made it to grade ten, 82,454 are boys and 73,573 girls bringing the national progression rate to 49.07 percent from 48.89 percent in 2015.

Dr Wanchinga says it’s pleasing that the proportion of candidates for Grade 9 that obtained Certificates increased from 48.21 percent in 2015 to 49.50 percent in 2016, while failure reduced from 5.26 percent to 4.97 percent in 2016.

He adds that more boys obtained certificates than girls while on the other hand, more girls obtained Statements than boys.

And the General Education Minister says he is also pleased that there were no reported cases of examination malpractices during the 2016 Grade 7 examination.

He is however, saddened that during the conduct of the 2016 Grade 9 examination, 113 cases of suspected malpractices were reported.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wanchinga is happy that the absenteeism rates during examinations at both Grade 7 and 9 has reduced as compared to last year.