Stakeholders in the education sector have expressed dissatisfaction over the decline in students’ performance in public examinations conducted by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

The Minister of Education, Prof Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, who stated this while declaring open the 2012 National Conference on Examinations in Abuja, also decried the poor quality of outcome from the education system.

The minister noted that a close look at the results over the years showed that there has been steady decline in the number of candidates who obtained five credits and above including English Language and Mathematics.

Rufa’I said this has become more worrisome given that this was the basic entry requirement for transition to higher education, and added that while 30.9 per cent of candidates obtained the five credits and above in WAEC in 2011, only 8.06 per cent had that in NECO.

The minister noted that there was a marginal improvement in performance in public examination in 2012, with WAEC recording 39 per cent of those that made five credits and above including English and Mathematics over the previous year.

In NECO, the figure is 31.58 per cent as opposed to 8.06 per cent in 2011.

The Minister particularly, tasked the State governments to do more in addressing this problem of poor performance of students, and said “we all know that States have greater role to play in turning round the massive failure in our examinations, especially when viewed from the fact that basic and secondary education are controlled by the States”.