The moment Year 13 students across the country have been waiting for has arrived.

The Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture (M.E.S.C) has released the results of the Samoa School Leaving Certificate (S.S.L.C).

And with that comes the question of how the students have performed compared to previous years.

Acting C.E.O of M.E.S.C, Leota Valma Galuvao, said the results vary.

While there has been an improvement in some subjects, there is a need for students to put more effort into others. 

“We saw a decline in students passing the English S.S.L.C exam which gives us an indication of where we need to focus more of our efforts through training programs for the teachers,” Leota said.

According to Leota a total of 2,016 students sat the S.S.L.C examination at the end of last year.

From that number, 1,048 students have qualified for the Foundation year at the National University of Samoa.

 “Those numbers are most likely to change because we always allow a period of two weeks for students to come and do a recount,” Leota said.

“Apart from seeing the overall results being as it is, we at M.E.S.C are happy with the results because it paints a clear picture of where the gaps are with students achievements and we now know where we will intervene in order to get improved results.”

Ever since M.E.S.C shifted to use raw marks, Leota said they now have the necessary statistics to help the students with how the examination is presented.

She said they are making a real effort to ensure the exam papers are “aligned with the curriculum.”

“The results also brought to light that the ministry needs to continue being proactive with training the teachers especially in core subjects such as English, Math, and Science which will lead to an improvement in the performance of the students,” Leota said. 

“There is always room for improvements within the teaching community and we always need to keep up to date with the world as they move forward.” 

With the world constantly moving forward, it brings about new ideas, discoveries, studies and preferred methods of teaching through technological advances.

“We at the ministry could improve through changing the teaching staff where it is needed and we always need to update the curriculum (so that it is) relevant to current systems,” Leota said.

Leota said their goal for this year is to “keep going forward".

“The education of our future generation is everyone’s responsibility and not just administrators, educators, principals and community leaders. We all need to be on board to be able to help our children.”

School Certificate results will be released next week.