Over 140,000 begin secondary school leaving exams today
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Isaac Munyakazi, the State Minister for Primary and Secondary education distributing papers to candidates at start of the exams at Groupe Scolaire Kicukiro on Tuesday. (All photos by Frederic Byumvuhore)

A combined 14,3551 secondary school candidates – 46,653 for Advanced Level and 96,898 for Ordinary Level – will today begin their respective national examinations at different sites across the country.

The 2018 national examinations will run through November 27 for O-Level candidates and November 30 for A-Level candidates.

There are 447 examination centres across the country for O-Level candidates while there are 381 centres for A-Level candidates, officials said yesterday.

Practical exams will be carried out from 243 centres.

Candidates line up at Groupe Scolaire Kicukiro. (Frederic Byumvuhore)

The exams are expected to be launched at Groupe Scolaire Kicukiro in Kicukiro District, officially kicking off the exercise at 8a.m.

The candidates are expected to be seated in their respective examination rooms by 8a.m and will have 30 minutes to read through the instructions and fill in basic information on examination booklets.

The first exam will start at 8:30a.m and close at 11:30am, officials said, while the second one will start at 2p.m through 5p.m.

A total of 54,194 girls and 45,096 boys are expected to turn up for O-Level examinations.

Senior Three students in the examination room at Groupe Scolaire Kicukiro before their Mathematics exam. (Frederic Byumvuhore)

Today, O-Level candidates will start with Mathematics before sitting Kinyarwanda in the afternoon.

Senior Three candidates will also write exams in History and Citizenship I, History and Citizenship II, Physics, English, Chemistry, Entrepreneurship, Geography and Environment I, Geography and Environment II, and Biology and Health sciences.

Innocent Hagenimana, the public relations officer at Rwanda Education Board, assured of security of the examinations, adding that measures had been taken to prevent malpractices.

The examinations were dispatched to the different centres Thursday last week, he said.

A supervisor checks candidates before they enter the examination room at Groupe Scolaire Kicukiro on Tuesday. (Frederic Byumvuhore)

Hagenimana said that REB, the Ministry of Education and the police, among other stakeholders, were working closely to ensure the smooth running of the examinations.

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