PRESS RELEASE - 2016 BOTSWANA GENERAL CERTIFICATE FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION (BGCSE) RESULTS RELEASED

Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) has released the 2016 Botswana General Certificate for Secondary Education (BGCSE) examination results. A total of 35 465 candidates wrote the 2016 examination showing a decrease in candidature of 8.6% compared to 2015 cohort of 38 796. There were 15 148 (42.7%) male candidates and 20 317 (57.3%) female candidates sitting for the 2016 BGCSE Examination. The BGCSE examination registered 25 016 (70.5%) candidates from government and government-aided schools compared to 25 640 (66.1%) in 2015 and 10 449 (29.5%) private candidates compared to 13 156 (33.9%) in 2015. The private candidates category included 3 645 (10.4%) Back-to-School candidates, 3 019 (8.5%) individual private candidates and 3 785 (10.7%) candidates from private schools. Since the BGCSE is a subject-based qualification with no aggregation, the measure used to gauge the performance of candidates is the proportion of candidates who were awarded Grade C or better in 5 syllabi. This year 6 368 (25.5%) candidates from government and government-aided schools were awarded Grade C or better in 5 syllabi compared to 6 291 (24.5%) in 2015. This shows a slight increase of 0.92%.