Nigeria: Yet Another Dismal WAEC Result

24 December 2013

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) last week released its November/December results which recorded over eight per cent decline in candidates' performance from the previous year. Only 86,612 candidates, representing 29 per cent of the total number of candidates who sat for the examination, obtained credits in five subjects and above including English Language and Mathematics. The implication is that about 71 per cent of the candidates cannot be said to have done well in the examination.

Head of National Office, Mr Charles Eguridu, who announced the result, said that when compared to the November/December 2011 and 2012 WASSCE (Private) results, there is a marked decline in candidates' performance. "In 2011, a total of 139,827 candidates representing 36.07% obtained credits in five subjects and above including English Language and Mathematics. Also in 2012, a total of 150,615 candidates, representing 37.97% obtained credits in five subjects including English Language and Mathematics," said Eguridu who lamented that the results this year were poorer than any in recent past. Against the background that over the past five years Nigeria has consistently recorded an annual less-than-40 per cent success rate in these examinations, such consistence in mass failure shows that something is dangerously wrong with the educational system and/or the environment that churns out annually a generation of illiterate young boys and girls. We therefore believe very strongly that the nation's educational systems, especially the public schools system from the primary to tertiary, have failed the youths of this country.

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