Student line before the high school diploma exam in 2019. Heng Chivoan
Minister of Education, Youth and Sport Hang Chuon Naron has instructed municipal and provincial education departments and high school administrators across the country to make preparations to ensure the maintenance of order and safety during the high school diploma exam now scheduled for December 27.
The grade 12 exam – also known as the baccalaureate exam or “Bac II” – was postponed from December 6 to December 27 this year in order to give students more time to prepare since schools nationwide were just reopened recently after a lengthy period of closure due to Covid-19.
Chuon Naron issued a prakas on the setup and arrangement of the 204 schools that will be used as testing centres.
He said a total of 115,139 students are expected to take the exam and that this was roughly equal to 4,651 full classrooms.
“The directors of all education departments and heads of the educational institutions to be used as exam centres have a duty to prepare the necessary materials for the conduct of the exam prior to that date,” he stated.
He further instructed them to contact their local authorities to request that they assign police officers to help maintain order and safety at the centres.
Mey Sengleap, deputy director of the Preah Sihanouk provincial education department, said on November 11 that his province will have five examination centres with 59 rooms, which will be cleaned up and rearranged appropriately ahead of the exam.
“We’ll then make a short video walk-through of the exam centres and submit those to the education ministry that will do a virtual inspection to make sure everything is done properly. We have already disinfected the rooms before the schools reopened, but we will disinfect again before the exam day,” he said.
Chhou Bunroeung, director of the Banteay Meanchey provincial education department, said the department has gradually been setting up exam centres and spraying alcohol to disinfect them but the work is not yet finished because the exam date is still far off.
“The number of candidates registered for the exam in 2021 is lower than in 2020. Last year we had about 6,000 and this year it is only 5,000.
“The decrease is due to the fact that many of the complementary students – those who failed their exams in previous years and applied to take it again – were passed automatically due to the pandemic. For the general education students who are just coming from their grade 12 classes, there is no decrease in numbers for this year,” he said.
