[size=15pt]WAEC releases results, 83% of candidates fail [/size]

By Segun Olugbile
Published: Saturday, 27 Sep 2008
The West African Examinations Council on Friday released the result of the May/June West African Senior Secondary Examination.

Skip to next paragraph

File
Dr. Igwe Aja-Nwachukwu, Minister of Education

The Head, National Office, WAEC, Dr. Iyi Uwadiae, who announced this at a media briefing on Friday, said that only 188,442 or 13.76 per cent of the 1,369,142 candidates that sat for the examination obtained five credits passes and above in English, Mathematics and three other subjects.

Uwadiae, while announcing the results, said that a total of 1,369,142 candidates entered for the examination in the country. He said out of this figure, 1,136,387 candidates, representing 83 per cent, had their full results released, while a few subjects sat for by 232,755 candidates, representing 17 per cent, were still being processed.

An analysis of the released results by Saturday Punch showed that 947,945 candidates, about 83 per cent of the total number of candidates that took the examination, failed to obtain five credits passes and above in English, Mathematics and three other subjects. A candidate seeking admission to any Nigerian university, except the University of Lagos, must have a minimum of five credits at a sitting before he or she could be considered for a place. However, to secure admission to UNILAG, a prospective student must have obtained a minimum of six credits at a sitting.He added that this was so because of alleged errors made by the candidates during the process of registration or during the conduct of the examination. Uwadiae assured that the results would be released as soon as the errors were corrected.

Giving a further analysis of the result, Uwadiae said that of the 188,442 candidates who obtained five credits, including English Language and Mathematics, 100,338 or 7.32 per cent were male while 88,104 or 6.43 per cent were female. A further analysis of the results, he said, showed that 91,609 candidates, representing 6.69 per cent, sat for science subjects; 28,898 or 2.11 per cent candidates took social science subjects; while 67,935 or 4.96 per cent did arts subjects. However, the results of 74,956, representing 5.47 per cent of the total number of candidates that sat for the examination, are being investigated based on various reports of their alleged involvement in malpractices during the conduct of the examination.

Uwadiae disclosed that the reports of the malpractices and the exhibits had been compiled for a presentation to the Nigeria Examinations Committee of the council. He said that the council’s decisions would be communicated to the affected candidates through the schools that presented them for the examination as soon as the committee finished its assignment. Uwadiae, who commended the Nigerian Union of Teachers, the federal and state governments for their efforts in ensuring the successful completion of the script marking, advised candidates to check their results on the council’s result-checking website as from Friday.

Answering questions on the leakage of some of the question papers, Uwadiae said all the papers suspected to have been compromised were replaced by the council. He assured all stakeholders, including the candidates who sat for the examination and their parents that no candidate benefited in any way or suffered beyond the inconveniences of the rescheduling of the cancelled papers as a result of the leakage

source:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art2008092714561089

[size=20pt]olodo rabata[/size]

I will wait to read from those who will gladly tell us that this does not in any way reflect the state of education in the country

only in Nigeria is where  WEAC  administrators are not held accountable. How could you  survive in business if  you incure 83% loss? Imagine  living a life where  you have 83% failure. I remember some of my professors  saying that nobody has ever scored an "A" in their courses. Its only In Nigeria where we dont think about consequences of our actions. I asked one of my profs " if nobody gets  an A in your course, do you expect your kids or grand kids to be taught by smart foks or  "dummies" who got out of the system with  " let my people go grades"  C's and D's. That's  why  is so freaking  hard to let PhD students graduate in Naija because their Profs wont let them.

Nigeria has no future if this rubbish continues unchecked

There is absolutely no effort or plan in place by the Government to give Education the priority it deserves.

Compare the performance to that in the UK this 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7574073.stm

What else can you expect from a country with one of the worst public school systems in the world. I read sometime ago in the guiness book of world records, that Nigeria spends 0.6% of its GNP on education, second lowest in the world.

compare to this.
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9989914

Singapore has the best primary and secondary school system in the world because they recognize that the quality of education cannot exceed the quality of its teachers, that's why they believe that you must not only have at least a masters degree to even teach in there elementary school but you must have graduated top of your class and after that you must go to teaching school for at least 2 years which is paid by the govt, because its one thing to know something and another thing to properly explain things to people so they understand it.

I wouldn't want Nigeria to lower its education standards so that everybody can pass like they do in the US or Britain but just make the teachers a lot better by assisting them with better learning aids like watching lectures on video or listen on radio cassette, so that they can pause or rewind. Having said that, trust Nigerians not to do this.

olodo rabata

@bilymuse
According to the bell curve, in every class, there are 10% very intelligent, 10% not so smart (in naija we like to call them "olodos" and 80% in between. There are reasons why students fall in this categories starting with the bottom 10 (but first of all, in case you didn't know, a high I.Q is something you develop, and not necessarily something you were born with). Kids in the bottom 10% usually have problems understanding things easily either because of some learning disability like ADD (Attention deficiency disorder), dyslexia, autism and the others. Some don't even come from a home that focuses on education; remember that for education to work, three agents have to be working simultaneously at the same time; the teacher, student and parent. If one is missing, the education process collapses, if the teacher is committed and is a good and knowledgeable teacher and the student on the other hand is not cooperative then it doesn't work, or if the parents don't contribute by helping the child, then its not going to work or worst of all, if the teacher doesn't know anything like the ones i had in secondary schools (what do you expect from an HND holder).
Now back to what i was talking about. If the child watches more than 3 hours of TV each week, or doesn't get at least the adequate hours of sleep, then the kid is in biiiiiiig trouble because he or she would find it extremely hard to pay attention in class because he would always be thinking about the movie on TV or video games. In some cases, students need there education to be visualized because as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words (it won't hurt if our educational system were more practical especially when it comes to the sciences. 

A huge reason why a lot of kids do poorly in math is not only because the teachers are lazy ( partly because they are underpaid, undertrained or even undermanned: how could a teacher teach 8 classes in a day) but they are not well trained in teaching methods. For example, anybody would tell you that the key to knowing math is repitition repitition repitition. It sounds obvious but we don't practice it. I remember when i was in primary school that the teacher only gave us homework once a week instead of everyday and also providing one one one sessions where they could explain it to us a lot better (its usually hard for some kids to pay attention or follow the teacher when you have 15 students in a class, let alone 50 students crammed like sardines in smelly and really hot conditions where kids are fanning themselves because the fans don't even work). If teachers can focus on "one on ones" with students and less on yelling, flogging (nothing wrong with flogging but should only be done when a kid is being unruly and disruptive in a class, not when the student doesn't understand the material) and being impatient with them, they would learn more. Teachers should create a friendly atmosphere for learning and not one of terror.

In naija, our teachers are sooooooo lazy that they only focus on the top 10% and don't care much about the other 90%. My mother used to say that when she was in secondary school, the teacher would only focus on the top 4 smartest kids in the class, if they understood the chapter, then he was moving to the next, he couldn't be bothered about the others in the class. Thank God, she had the drive and ambition to teach herself and spend unbelievable hours a day studying extra if not she would have gotten nowhere. Now for every case like my mom, there are 10 other kids who don't have the drive and therefore end up in the arts or other unprofitable majors simply because they've been told that they are not good enough. Its no wonder that Nigeria has the lowest amount of engineers per capita or that we have the one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world (basically, we have a health crisis), its because we have an acute shortage of doctors.This kids need to be encouraged (and coerced in some cases) and to be drilled with the self belief that they can accomplish anything they want to and that means putting them in direct competition with the so called smartest kids in class so that they know where they stand because some of this kids are just late bloomers like Albert Einstein.

,.

adconline:

only in Nigeria is where WEAC administrators are not held accountable. How could you survive in business if you incure 83% loss? Imagine living a life where you have 83% failure. I remember some of my professors saying that nobody has ever scored an "A" in their courses. Its only In Nigeria where we don't think about consequences of our actions. I asked one of my profs " if nobody gets an A in your course, do you expect your kids or grand kids to be taught by smart foks or "dummies" who got out of the system with " let my people go grades" C's and D's. That's why is so freaking hard to let PhD students graduate in Naija because their Profs wont let them.

My Guy, WAEC = examiners, not teachers. Stop blaming them and focus your anger at the students and teachers

In naija, our teachers are sooooooo lazy that they only focus on the top 10% and don't care much about the other 90%. My mother used to say that when she was in secondary school, the teacher would only focus on the top 4 smartest kids in the class, if they understood the chapter, then he was moving to the next, he couldn't be bothered about the others in the class.

make una leave teachers alone o!
they are trying their best within a very difficult circumstance.

the 83% failure in WAEC exam, is a true reflection of Nigeria as a nation:
Nigeria is 83% a failure in all aspect of human endeavour

Numbers don't lie o.