Stakeholders in the education sector, including educationists and parents, have lamented the poor performance of students in the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
The results released on Monday indicated that out of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat for the examination, only 754,545 candidates, representing 38.32 per cent, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
It would be recalled that during this year’s exam, some schools adopted the Computer-Based Test method while others opted for the Paper-Based Test method.
The Head of Nigeria’s Office (HNO) of WAEC, Amos Dangut, who announced the release of the results during a media briefing at the examination body’s headquarters in Lagos, stated that this year’s result showed a 33.8 per cent decrease in performance compared to 72.12 per cent recorded in 2024.
He stated that the results of 192,089 candidates, representing 9.75 per cent of the total number of candidates, were withheld over various reported cases of malpractice.
According to him, the figure represented a 2.17 per cent decline compared to the 11.92 per cent recorded in the 2024 edition of the same examination.
In 2020, the examination body announced that 1,003,668 candidates, representing 65.24 per cent out of 1,601,047 who sat for the exams, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
The following year, 2021, saw an improvement of 81.7 per cent pass rate recorded, translating to 16 per cent, while it reduced to 76.36 per cent in 2022, representing more than a 5 per cent decline in performance.
In 2023, the examination body recorded a 79.81 per cent pass rate, including those who took English and Mathematics papers, while the pass rate reduced to 72.12 in 2024.
The examination’s body attributed the low pass rate to the Computer-Based Test (CBT) and serialisation approach, describing them as an innovative method to tackle examination malpractice.
The Head of Nigeria’s Office (HNO) of WAEC, Amos Dangut, stressed that the serialisation approach deployed in the objective test question papers for Mathematics, English Language, Biology, and Economics exposed candidates copying from each other, a development which contributed to failure in those subjects.
