Ghanaian candidates’ results best in past 3 years

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) said candidates from Ghana had produced best results in West African Senior School Certificate Examination(WASSCE) in the past three years.

WAEC’s Head of National Office in Nigeria, Mr Charles Eguridu, disclosed this during at a dinner with newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja.

Eguridu said that Nigeria, by its population, should be the best in the examination but lamented that stakeholders in the country were not taking education of their wards seriously.

"Over the past three years, candidates from Ghana have remained the best; it is saddening considering our population.

"We have been paying lip service to teachers; some schools do not have facilities; candidates do not have laboratories, vocational centres, libraries and textbooks.

"The outcome of such educational system will be self-evident; it is high time we got more serious with our value system and adopt excellence as our watchword.

"It is not that Nigerians are less intelligent but we do not motivate our children; the love and quest for material things has taken over the level of responsibility in many homes,’’ he said.

According to him, children are not monitored at home as they are left to watch movies and do other things at the detriment of their studies.

On the perceived credibility issue between WAEC and the National Examination Council (NECO) results in terms of students’ performances, Eguridu said that the council’s researchers would look into the matter.

"We do not set the questions; we use teachers from the school system in the country.

"They also do the marking; we just coordinate and facilitate it,’’ he said.

"We must continue to maintain standard; we do not adjust to make people happy.

"We want our results to reflect the quality of teaching, skills and competence in our schools.

"If some others appear to be doing very well, that is something we have to research into,’’ he added.

Eguridu disclosed that from 2016, WAEC’s November/December General Certificate in Education (GCE) examination would be known as ‘’Private Candidates’’ examination while that of May/June would be ‘’School Candidates’’ examination.

He explained that the change in name was to avoid tying the examinations to specific months.

On the debts being owed the council by some states, he said that 30 per cent of the states had paid while some others issued promissory notes.

Eguridu expressed the hope that the defaulting states would pay soon, adding that the council was considering the hardship being faced by some of the states.

On her part, Chairman of WAEC in Nigeria, Mrs Anne Okonkwo, appealed to all well-meaning Nigerians to support the council to eliminate examination malpractice which was giving the country a bad image.

Okonkwo, who is the Director, Basic and Secondary, Federal Ministry of Education, said that WAEC had international recognition and had deployed requisite technology for efficiency.