More than a quarter of high school seniors failed their final examinations in results posted across Phnom Penh and Kandal campuses on Thursday.
An Education Ministry statement said 128,135 total students registered nationwide for the exams this year, and 90,950 passed — leaving 37,185, or 29%, who failed.
Just 1,049 students, or 0.8%, received an A, and increasing numbers received the other passing grades of B, C, D and E: 7,232, 19,053, 31,166 and 32,450 students, respectively.
Results were posted at Phnom Penh and Kandal schools, with the rest of the country set to receive their results on Friday.
Around 200 students were gathered at Phnom Penh’s Boeng Keng Kang High School in the afternoon, some of them laughing with their friends, others falling to their knees and crying.
Vuth Sometheamean, 18, said he was happy with his D result, and had immediately called up his parents and grandmother to tell them.
“They said I did a good job. I cried,” Sometheamean said.
“I’m an average student, so I only wanted to pass. … I expected to get an E.”
He had taken extra courses outside school to prepare, paying $10-$15 per subject, he added.
Raksmey Philips, 18, said his hopes had declined during the exams on December 5 and 6.
“On the first day of the exam I believed that I would get an A. But on the second day I was hoping to get a C,” Philips recalled. “I am so happy with this B result.”
After seeing his results, Philips is determined to improve in mathematics, as he hopes to go to a health and sciences university.
