Common Entrance exam results released

South West Region scores 88.06 percentage pass in the exam which is the yardstick for pupils wishing to pursue secondary education. Results of the 2014 Common Entrance Examination to select pupils for Secondary Education have been released. Of the 19,628 candidates who took the examination in the South West Region, 17.284 were declared successful.

Making the results public on May 23, 2014 in Buea, the new South West Regional Delegate for Basic Education, Ebai Maurice, noted that the entire Region scored an 88.06 percentage pass this year improving from last year's 84.96 per cent. According to an official performance classification of the six administrative Divisions in the South West Region, Meme tops the chart followed by Fako, Kupe Muanenguba, Manyu, Lebialem and Ndian in descending order. The examination is taken only in two subjects, namely English Language and Mathematics (or Arithmetic).

A growing debate animated among educationists has questioned the raison d'être of a separate exam to pick pupils for secondary education when the First School Leaving Certificate could well be styled to play the trick. While the Anglophone sub-system of Education sets two separate common exams (First School Leaving Certificate and Common Entrance) at the end of their cycle, their Francophone counterparts undertake only one (CEP for Certificat d'Etudes Primaires) and the individual secondary schools organise the recruitment of their students called "Entrée en Sixième".

However, the release of the results of this year's Common Entrance have been acclaimed to be timely; just a week after writing, thus enabling parents to fit their offspring in various secondary schools in good time.