SC/HSC: exams are from October 3
These will be the first events since the return to the old school calendar. The candidates concerned should have taken part in them last year, but had to wait an additional year due to the upheavals linked to Covid-19. As the pandemic is no longer relevant, Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) is also raising the level of correction this year.
While currently participating in the Mock Exams, SC and HSC candidates are already in the presence of their provisional Time Tables from the Mauritius Examinations Syndicate (MES). The tests will begin on October 3 for SC candidates, with the French test.
These written exams generally follow the practical tests, which are held a few days earlier. Candidates engaged in Hinduism and French literature will also have their exams a day earlier, on October 2.
The different subjects will then follow one another until mid-November. Thus, the Additional Mathematics exam is scheduled for October 6, that of English, October 10, Computer Science and Maths Syllabus D, paper 1, October 11, among others.
At the HSC level, candidates registered for Urdu will go to the examination hall on October 3. The subjects will be spread out thereafter, with French scheduled for October 4, Hindi, October 6, Physics on October 9, Travel and Tourism, October 10, in particular. HSC exams will also end around mid-November.
For these 2023 events, the return to Cambridge Pre-Covid standards has been announced. That is to say, the correction will be more severe and there will be no Special Consideration linked to the pandemic, as was the case in 2021 and 2022. Already, for the November 2022 tests , CAIE had reintroduced part of the Pre-Covid standards.
The examiner explains as follows: "in 2022, the standard that we set was at the midpoint between 2019 and 2021. This meant that the grades we awarded in 2022 were more generous than those awarded in June 2019, and less generous than those awarded in June 2021.”
However, CAIE specifies that this does not mean that candidates who have been very affected by the Covid-19 pandemic will be harmed. The way to proceed will be to compare the groups taking the tests under similar conditions.
“We want to protect students against the impact of disruption to learning caused by the Covid pandemic (…) we will avoid disadvantaging students who might have performed less well than they would have done if they had taken the exams in 2019, when they had not experienced any disruption to their learning”, points out Cambridge.
The standards will be determined by examination center. This means that all Mauritian candidates will be assessed on an equal footing. Proofs will be partly corrected in Mauritius on the basis of Cambridge guidelines.
In the meantime, the candidates are currently completing the Mock Exams in their respective colleges. The second quarter will end on August 14 and the third quarter will start on August 7.
NCE exams
September 28: Art & Design Component 1/Asian languages/Arabic/Kreol Morisien
September 29: French/Social and Modern Studies
October 4: Business and Entrepreneurship Education/Art & Design Component 2
October 6: English/ICT
October 9: Science (biology/chemistry/physics)
October 10: Technology Studies Component 1 & 2
October 13: Mathematics
August 28: Modular Assessment Science
August 29: Modular History-Geography Assessment
October 26: French
October 27: English
October 30: Asian languages/Arabic/Kreol Morisien/Kreol Rodrige
Grade 5 students taking part in PSAC this year will have their Grade 5 Modular Assessment for Science and History-Geo on September 26. They will then pass those of Grade 6 on October 26 and October 30, respectively.
START OF 2024: Grade 7 registration exercise
Parents whose children will be taking PSAC exams this year are invited to apply for Grade 7 registration. July 12.
Parents will also be invited to an explanatory meeting by the management of the schools concerned. They must return the duly completed forms to the respective establishments, presenting their identity cards, no later than Friday, August 4.
The colleges that will be assigned to applicants will be known on the day of the PSAC results. According to the instructions of the Ministry of Education, the MES will take into consideration the performance of the candidates, their places of residence as well as the choice of the parents.
