This year’s primary national examinations started on Monday 21st October and scheduled to finish on Friday 25th October 2019. While the Ministry, for weeks, have been gearing up to roll-out a successful operation in implementing this year’s national exams, School Principals, teachers and primary school students all over the country have worked tirelessly throughout the year and have also lost some sleep over their preparations for this week’s national tests.
Our National Primary Examinations for lower-primary levels will see approximately 6,150 students sitting the Year 2 tests. Similarly, a total of 5,430 and 5,220 students will sit the Year 4 & 6 SPELL examinations respectively.
For the Samoa Primary Education Certification Assessment (SPECA), a total of 4,696 Year 8 students will be assessed on their skill levels, knowledge and understanding acquired over their primary education for all 7 subjects in the Samoa National Primary Curriculum.
The Primary Exams will be shortly followed by National Secondary Examinations in Mid-November as usual over many years, where Year12 and Year13 students from all Colleges around the country will sit the Samoa School Certificate (SSC) and the Samoa School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) exams.
More than 2,000 students are expected to sit the Samoa School Certificate (SSC) exam, and about 1,800 students expected to sit the Samoa Secondary Leaving Certificate (SSLC) this year.
Selected Teams of Assessment Officers and administrators from the Ministry are working really hard this week from very early hours of the morning until very late at night to ensure our schools and most importantly our students experience a smooth examination week. School Inspectors and School Principals are amongst those playing pivotal roles this week through their supervisory and monitoring responsibilities over distributing, collecting of exam scripts as well as assisting where appropriate to ensure the effective and successful implementation of the 2019 national examinations.
Examination week each year is one, if not, the most critical activity in the Ministry’s Corporate Plan and Calendar of Events and the Ministry is confident that the results of the activity will not only provide meaningful pathways for the students of Samoa but will also provide the Ministry with useful data for interventions and decision making.
Timetables and schedules for all primary and secondary exams had been distributed to schools and made available on the MESC website.
The Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture wishes all students of Samoa the best of luck with this year’s National Exams.
