After the national high school exam results were released over the weekend—with about 56 percent of students passing—a number of those who did not make the grade headed to the Ministry of Education on Monday to submit official letters of complaint.
With the ministry announcing before the exam that there would be no second chance, as there was last year, students have instead been given a 30-day appeal window to request that their exam be rescored.
“I don’t know what went wrong with my test…it might be a technical error,” said Yam Thavirak, 20, just after he submitted a complaint.
Mr. Thavirak was among the 36,781 students who failed the exam, out of a total of 83,341 students who completed it. He said he was shocked to learn he had not passed because he was confident with the material in the test.
“I came here today to file a complaint to ask the ministry to recheck my scores,” he said. “I did well… Why did I get such a poor mark?”
Some of the students filing complaints Monday had not failed this year’s test, but were unsatisfied with their scores.
Eourn Souing, 17, who passed with a C, said she submitted a complaint because her math, chemistry and English scores were lower than they should have been, based on answer sheets she saw after completing the exam.
“I need the ministry to recheck …because I did a lot of it correctly,” she said.
However, Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said Monday that not every letter of complaint will lead to a review.
“Ten thousand people we cannot review,” he said. “They should provide some evidence.”
He said that after receiving complaints, ministry officials would determine which deserved to be reviewed.
