A student smiles happily at Boeung Trabek High School in Phnom Penh on Tuesday on the final day of this year's Grade 12 exams. Hean Rangsey
There were no significant incidents of cheating or other irregularities during the two-day Grade 12 examination held over Monday and Tuesday, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport said.
Candidates across the country complied very well with the rules of the examination, also known as Bac II, the ministry said on Tuesday.
“The quality of the examination has remained consistent for five years, thanks to the cooperation of all relevant stakeholders, as well as the Anti-Corruption Unit and the Union Youth Federations of Cambodia.
“Other institutions have also continued to cooperate,” Ministry of Education spokesman Ros Soveacha told The Post on Tuesday.
He said three candidates had automatically failed. Of them, two male candidates – one from Phnom Penh and the other from Takeo province – were caught attempting to take answer sheets and a mobile phone into the examination room.
A female candidate from Siem Reap was disqualified after turning up more than 30 minutes late.
The ministry said 1,838 candidates were absent, including 696 girls. The figure is equivalent to 1.57 per cent of the 117,043 who registered for this year’s examination.
“The 152 candidates who could not sit the examination due to ill health will be able to retake them after treatment from their doctor. Eleven candidates could not take the examination after being taken to hospital,” the ministry said.
The results will be announced at examination centres in Phnom Penh and Kandal province on the afternoon of September 10. They will be announced nationwide on September 11. The results will also be posted on the Ministry of Education’s Facebook page.
This year, 117,043 candidates, including 60,427 girls, sat the examinations at 202 locations. The social science class had 127 examination centres, while the science class had 75.
Yong Kim Eng, the president of the People Centre for Development and Peace, told The Post on Tuesday that there seemed to be no major irregularities in the examination process.
However, he said the ministry would likely have to add to the scores in the examination to achieve the high student pass rate seen in previous years.
“The ministry is only strict [with cheating] in the Grade 12 examination, but in practice examination in the class is never so strict.
“There are different standards between students from the modern model schools and those from standard schools in the Grade 12 classroom, even though they are all under the same education system,” Kim Eng said.
Bun Sreymealeanika, who sat the examination at Phnom Penh’s Preah Sisowath High School, told The Post on Tuesday that the tests in mathematics and physics on the final day of the examination were difficult.
“I could not finish most of the questions in the examination. There were a lot of questions,” she said.
