Nouakchott — More than 35,000 Mauritanian students sat for this year's baccalaureate exam but only 3,152 passed, officials announced last Thursday. Some 3,455 candidates were allowed to re-sit the exam.

Education Minister Ahmed Ould Bahiya on July 11th met with fellow cabinet members to discuss the last six years of secondary school admission, BEPC (certificate of secondary education) and baccalaureate exam results.

"These indicators have all improved in terms of both the pass rate and the number of distinctions," he later told the press.

The minister also noted that "the secondary schools of excellence, which were launched in 2010, and the military secondary school... have had a passing rate of 100 per cent".

But one indicator of the real state of Mauritania education is that most of the candidates for the 2013 test came from private schools.

"Despite all of the efforts made, our education system still has no credibility as standards are slipping and the needs of employers are not being met; in addition, there is poor teacher training, poor planning and a lack of refresher courses," Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf said at a national education conference last February.

The opposition Democratic Meeting party seized on the bac numbers as emblematic of a larger crisis, recalling the prime minister's words at the 4-day Nouakchott education summit.

"Despite the fact that the prime minister has acknowledged the poor state of the education system, it has continued to deteriorate throughout the past five years," the opposition party statement said. "These results indicate the scale of the failure of our education system."

"The passing rate is below 10 per cent, while it is 60 per cent in Senegal and 90 per cent in France," the Democratic Meeting noted.

Students are equally critical. Cheikh Tourad Ould Sidi, an unlucky Baccalaureate D candidate, said: "The problem is the marking. The teachers aren't conscientious. A lot of them don't even mark our scripts."

"I don't understand the grading," another frustrated student said. "This was my third attempt at the baccalaureate, and yet the questions weren't difficult."

It is not all bad news for Mauritanian education. The vocational sector is the target of "priority measures", the deputy minister for employment, vocational training and new technologies told the cabinet last Thursday.

Mohamed Ould Khouna presented a separate report to the cabinet on "the progress made in boosting institutional capacities and the number of people in technical and vocational training, which in 2013 reached 4,810 young people".

Education inspector Ba Sidi also voiced optimism about what lies ahead for Mauritanian students.

"These baccalaureate results merely reflect the reality of our education system. Standards are very low and the 1999 reform has been very badly implemented," Sidi said.

"But I think that implementing the recommendations of the General Education Conference will help us to make a fresh start on a solid footing," he added.