Out of the 11,721 candidates who sat for the newly introduced February diet of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), only 8,763 candidates, representing 73.99 per cent failed to obtain minimum credits and above in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
This poor performance has irked many stakeholders within the country’s education sector, including the Nigerian Union of Teachers, the National Parent Teachers’ Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), and in fact, the Federal Government.
Barely one month after the successful conduct of the new diet of the private candidates’ examination, the Head of Nigeria’s Office of WAEC, Mr. Olu Adenipekun, made the announcement yesterday at the Lagos headquarters of the examination body.
While making the announcement, Adenipekun revealed that of the total 11,721 candidates took part in the examination, only 1,937 candidates, representing 26.01 per cent, obtained minimum credits and above in five subjects including English Language and Mathematics. Adenipekun, who added that the results of 1,937 candidates, representing 9.03 per cent of the total candidature were withheld by the Council, said he was impressed with the turnout of the candidates and the release of the results in less than one month after the conduct of the examination.
Given statistics of the results, Adenipekun said “ a total of 11,721 candidates registered for the examination, out of which 11,307 candidates sat the examination. Of the total number of candidates that sat the examination, 6,370 were male and 4,937 were female, representing 56.34 per cent and 43.66 per cent respectively. “8,113 candidates, representing 71.75 per cent obtained credits and above in two subjects; 6,375 candidates, representing 56.38 per cent obtained credits and above in three subjects; 4,762 candidates, representing 42.12 per cent obtained credits and above in four subjects; 3,263 candidates, representing 28.86 per cent obtained credits and above in five subjects, and 2,010 candidates, representing 17.78 obtained credits and above in six subjects.”
But in their separate responses to the performance, stakeholders described it as a wake-up call to declare emergency in the nation’s education sector, blaming all concerned parties, including government at all levels, parents, teachers and the candidates themselves. Speaking, the National President of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Michael Olukoya- Alogba, who described the performance as a colossal failure, said as much as teachers must share part of the blame, the “major offenders are the government, and the parents, who have abandoned their responsibilities of monitoring their children.”
According to Olukoya- Alogba, the alleged politicisation of education by government at all levels is largely responsible for the rot in the system. He said: “Even though I have not seen the details of the result but from the statistics you just reeled out, 26 per cent anywhere is a colossal failure, and this calls for serious emergency in the education sector by all relevant stakeholders, including parents, teachers, government, and development partners.
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