January 2008 Newsletter: National Test Results

Like other primary school finalists all over Rwanda, our children sat Mathematics exam on Tuesday 23 October 2007 at 8-11am; and Science & Elementary Technology and General Knowledge at 1-3pm. Each exam was worth 100 marks.

They also sat a language test on Wednesday at 8-11am. The test comprised of English, French and Kinyarwanda, each worth 33%, 33% and 34%, respectively.

All the papers were marked by an independent board in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. These results were released on 23 January 2008 but reached the Province on 25January 2008 and then the head teacher on 26 January 2008.

Children and their parents will learn their fate on Monday 28 January 2008.

Results:
As seen on this enlargeable graph, we have had 10 passes in 2007, compared to 7 in 2006 and just 5 in 2005.

Since May 2007, kids in the final primary school year (P6) received:

A cooked meal on Monday to Saturday;

Curriculum books for Social Sciences, wherein General Knowledge questions were drawn; as well as English and French books, wherein questions in the Language Exam came from.

NB: Curriculum books for Mathematics and Elementary Science/Technology, Kinyarwanda as well as some French Grammar books were not available on the market.

Even though started all most half way into the school calendar, it is clear that providing a meal and some curriculum books to kids coming from poor background has increased their pass rates from 40% in the previous year to 43% in 2007.

Certainly, the lives of the children who passed this test, and hopefully that of their families and village, will never be the same again.

Please see their School Attendance Statistics