The 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for private candidates second series witnessed a 31.63 percent entry decline due to the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has revealed.
In 2019, a total of 97,080 candidates registered for the examination while in 2020 a total of 66,375 candidates entered for the examination.
Patrick Areghan, head of the Nigeria national office of WAEC said the 31.63 percent drop in entry when compared to the 2019 entry figure, could be attributed to the effect of COVID.
Areghan stated this while announcing the results of 2020 WASSCE, Monday, in Lagos, adding that only 39.82 percent of the candidates who sat for the examination had credits and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
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The breakdown of the result as released by WAEC, Nigeria, indicates that these results were obtained by only 24,491 candidates out of the total of 61,509 that sat for the examination across 540 centres in Nigeria.
Areghan pointed out that the percentage of candidates in this category in the WASSCE for private candidates, 2018 and 2019, that is, those who obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, were 35.99 percent and 35.10 percent respectively, adding that there is a marginal increase of 4.72 percent in performance in this regard.
He, however, noted that the number of candidates that had five credits, including English Language and Mathematics, may not necessarily be a basis for judging the level of performance in this examination.
According to him, “This is because the examination is more or less a remedial one. Some candidates may just need only one or two papers, other than English Language and /or Mathematics, to remedy their admission deficiencies”.
He further stated that the results of 5,548 candidates, representing 9.02 percent of the total number of candidates that sat for the examination, were being withheld in connection with various cases of examination malpractice.
“The cases are being investigated and reports of the investigations will be presented to the appropriate committee of the council for determination in due course. The committee’s decisions will be communicated directly to the affected candidates thereafter”, he said.
Giving a breakdown of the results, Araghan also disclosed that 31,751 candidates representing 51.62 percent obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects (with or without English Language and/or Mathematics; out of which 15,376 were males and 16,375 were females, representing 48.43 percent and 51.57 percent, respectively.
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