Jul 15 , 2023
Officials at the Ministry of Education revealed that over half of the 150,000 students that took university exit exams in their final year have failed. Only 40.65pc of examinees obtained a passing mark for the exam that was given nationwide for the first time. The students are nearly 100,000 less than the expected 244,000 comprised of both state-owned and private institutions. State Minister for Education, Samuel Kifle (PhD) suggested that these students might have realised they were not prepared to take the exams during a press briefing at the Ministry's offices at Adwa St. While 62pc of the 78,000 examinees that hailed from state-owned universities managed to obtain the 50pc passing mark, a staggering 83pc of students who took tests out of private institutions failed. Exit examinations are part of the Ministry's sweeping reforms in the higher education sector which had shocking results six months ago as the updated university entrance examinations had resulted in a mere three percent obtaining a passing mark. The Ministry revealed that students will be viable to retake the exit examination after six months with two exam sessions scheduled per year. Samuel noted that a combination of factors might have colluded to bring surprising results, while deeper research is required to identify the causes properly