WAEC dismisses mass failure claims

Tina Amanda

The Head of National Office of West African Examination Council (WAEC), Olu Adenipekun, says statistics have revealed that there has been a progressive improvement in the performance of candidates over the years.

Mr Adenipekun disclosed this to our reporter Tina Amanda during the recent commissioning of WAEC branch office in Yenegoa.

He dismissed the claim of mass failure, says the statistics released to the public over the years were drawn from the chief examiner’s report based on candidates’ performance in all the subjects and papers written.

“WAEC as an assessment body always comes out to tell the nation how candidates have performed in WAEC examinations devoid of any dressing up. We tell it the way it is. When candidates perform better or poorer than the previous exam, we tell the nation and state reasons why candidates’ performance is good or poor for each year’s exam sitting.

“We do that for candidates to know their strength or weakness. The chief examiner’s reports are made available to all secondary schools recognised by WAEC in Nigeria, the same chief examiner’s reports are on the WAEC website for teachers, students, parents to see.

He also said that candidates have no reason to indulge in any form of malpractice following what he described as an improved level of education.

“The curriculum which defines what students are taught in schools have been greatly improved upon, the number of subjects that are been taught in secondary schools has also increased tremendously, the teaching method required is different now from what it used to be. Students of today have lots of opportunities apart from the library, teachers and students also have access to other sources of information that can improve their academic knowledge”

Mr Adenipekun also said the council is fully prepared for the forthcoming 2019 WAEC in April.

“That is the business we have been doing for the past sixty-six years and so we prepare every day for our examination.

“Preparations are in top gear for the 2019 WAEC school examination, entries are ongoing now and underneath we are doing other pre-examination arrangements for the April exam, so we are very much prepared”