Somalia postpones national exams amid Covid-19 surge

The minister said that the exam for the 2020/21 school year will kick off May 29 and ends on June 2, of this year. He has urged all students to take advantage of the extra time given to review their books.

News Keydmedia Online
6 May 2021

MOGADISHU, Somalia - In view of a fresh wave of the Covid-19 cases across Somalia and violence in Mogadishu, the Federal Government has decided to postpone the entrance of the 2021 national exams.

Speaking to the state TV, the country’s minister of education Abdullahi Abukar Haji announced that the final examination of the primary and secondary schools which was earlier scheduled to be held on May 22 was delayed for a week.

The minister said that the exam for the 2020/21 school year will kick off May 29 and ends on June 2, of this year. He has urged all students to take advantage of the extra time given to review their books.

“Decision has been taken keeping the well-being of the young students in our mind after the country faces challenges including the Covid-19 and violence in Mogadishu that forced many pupils to flee,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of students in the five of Somalia's regional states and Mogadishu will be affected by the postponement which comes amidst political tension in the country.

Last year, the ministry of education has recorded the highest number of students, mostly in the capital failing the unified national exam after a difference between the ministry and private education networks.

In 2015, Somalia relaunched a nationwide unified high school exam for the first time since the military regime collapsed in 1991 that led to a bloody civil war in the Horn of Africa nation.

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