South Sudanese secondary school pupils began sitting examinations across the country yesterday for the new South Sudan secondary certificate after an agreement to allow schools to continue using the Sudan certificate was not upheld.

However, the delivery of papers was marred on Sunday when unknown gunmen attacked a public taxi carrying exam papers from Juba to Torit in Eastern Equatoria state.  The secretary for secondary school exams, Mr Sebit, said that ‘Passengers were forced to leave the vehicle and taken into the bush.  One person who was carrying the exams got killed.’ He added that he believes this to have been coincidental.

Initially expected to take place across South Sudan in early March, the exams were postponed as the Sudan ministry of education announced in February that Juba had not fulfilled the requirements of timely registration and payment.

The signed agreement for Juba to continue to use Sudan’s secondary curriculum and examinations was originally expected to extend three years beyond independence, concluding in early 2014.

While pupils began the exams yesterday, there have been a number of concerns over the move to create a new qualification so quickly, particularly over the quality and strength of the new system.

In Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state the minister for education, Ustaz Kon Deng Chan, raised attention to a major concern over the language of study and examination.

“The first challenge is that, many students amongst the candidates are Arabic pattern and we still do not know in which language the exam will based on,” Chan stated last week before the release of the papers.

While South Sudan’s official language of instruction is English, many pupils who have been studying for the Sudan certificate have been doing so in Arabic. 

Another challenge is that of preparation, given that pupils have studied content from the Sudanese curriculum rather than its new South Sudan counterpart.

Furthermore, Chan noted that students are currently on holiday and so some schools have had to recall them in order to sit the exams.

“We received the Index numbers for the students, timetable as well and very clear that the exams will kick off on Monday, 22^nd of this month despite of the fact that students are on holiday,” reported the state-level minister.

Photo: Students sitting for the secondary scchool exam in Aweil, Northern Bahr al Ghazal, 22 April 2013 (Radio Tamazuj)