Minister of Education concerned about drop in student results

Minister of Education Dr Ismail Shafeeu has stated that it is a reality that must be accepted that although about MVR 4 billion is spent on the education sector, it is not reaping the desired results.

The Minister made these comments while speaking in this morning's session of ceremonies held to award prizes to students who completed O'Levels in 2022 and 2023 and made it to the Top Tens, and to those who completed A'Levels last year.

Quoting statistics, the Minister said that even when taking into consideration the results of the 2013 and 2014 O'Level exams, less than 50 percent of students had managed to score a minimum of C passes in five subjects.

The Ministry considers C passes in 5 subjects in O'Levels as the lowest level of pass.

"We have not reached that yet. Even when we look at 2023 and 2024, we see the same thing," the Minister said.

The minister said that despite the efforts of dedicated teachers and parents, Maldives still hasn't been able to achieve this. He added that students' results can only be raised through first accepting this reality.

"We know when we look at National Assessment of Learning Outcome's data that Key Stage 1, where Grade 3 is completed and Key Stage 2, where Grade 6 is completed, that students are unable to achieve the desired results in important subjects such as maths or english or dhivehi," he said.

To address this, programmes have been launched to over further training to teachers to improve their levels. As such, a training with foreign technical experts was held for principals last year, in light of which the curriculum and content is now being revised, he said.