Rhino: The ongoing war between the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan has prevented students in East Darfur from sitting the Sudanese certificate exams. The Director of the General Directorate of Secondary Education in East Darfur State, Dr. Ahmed Musa Bello, told Radio Tamazuj that the number of East Darfur students registered for the postponed Sudanese certificate exam is 8650 students, but none of them have been able to sit for the exam, attributing this to the war and insecurity.
Mamdouh Ibrahim, a student from South Darfur, said he failed to sit for the exams because of the war. “When the exams were scheduled for December, I started studying and worked during the day in the market to help my family, but unfortunately I was unable to sit for the exams,” he said.
One of the students’ mothers, Sumaya Salah, lamented that her son was unable to sit for the exams. “We heard that there was an emergency center for students in Chad, but before the exams, Chad announced that the exams would not be held in its territory because of a misunderstanding between it and the government,” she said.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj, educational expert and secondary school teacher Issa Mohamed Manzul said that the exams were held at a time when students were not prepared either psychologically or academically. In the past, he said, exams were held in circumstances in which the student would continue to study and attend revision classes after the end of the curriculum.
“These exams are taking place at a time when students have been out of school for nearly two years, and in a state of war, displacement and refugees, so students will enter the exam with a bad morale,” he said. He predicted that this would affect the outcome of this year’s Sudanese certificate exams, as Nyala registered 24,000 students, Zalingei 15,000, Geneina 15,000, North Darfur 17,000, and El Daein 8650,000, of whom less than 10% sat the exams.
