Boys occupy top positions as 5,000 students miss out despite signing up for the exams

Almost 16,000 students secured a pass mark in the 2017 national secondary school examinations out of at least 18,000 who sat for the final exams in May.

The results released Thursday by the ministry of education indicated that 15,356 students passed with a majority-10,262 being boys. Girls made up a third of the number translating to 5,094. The fate of about 5,000 students however remains unknown as it emerges they did not sit for the exams despite registering.

A total of 23,000 students registered for the May exams but the education ministry released the results for 18,239 students.

Meanwhile Banaadir region produced the best student (Abdulkadir Abdullahi Salad) with 94 points followed by Ahmed  Abdirahman Ali with 93.7 points. Two students from Ibnu Khusayma secondary school in Mogadishu emerged in the top ten.

Compared to last year, more students (2,883) failed to secure the pass mark. In the 2016 exams, 1470 students failed. A majority, 10,104 out of 11,574 satisfied the examiner. 3180 female students passed the exams while male students contributed the most at 6924

All the top ten positions were occupied by boys locking out female students.