The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has recorded its largest failure in the 2016 Senior High School category in four years. This year, 22,671 out of 46,927 students who registered for the exams, failed.
According to WAEC 2016 results released, those failed constitute nearly half (48.46%) of the total number of students registered.
Despite several efforts instituted by authorities at the Ministry of Education (MOE), including distribution of text books and additional deployment of teachers in some counties, WAEC still recorded its poorest results among senior high students since 2013. In 2013, WAEC recorded 7,884 failures (29.49%) out of 26,993 registered, while in 2014, WAEC recorded 13,651 failures (49.37%) out of 27,881 registered.
The Minsitry of Education suspended the WAEC exams in 2015 as the nation struggled to recover from the Ebola epidemic and that interrupted the academic calendar since 2014.
Discussing the results yesterday at the Ministry of Information regular press briefing on Capitol Hill, John Gayvolor, head of WAEC Monrovia’s National Office, said 16,072 (34.48%) students passed the examinations.
He said results for an additional 7,870 students are being withheld for collusion because of irregularities, including suspected spying.
In previous WAEC examinations, he said, students whose results were withheld simply did not pass the examination.
According to Gayvolor, 21,961 females sat the tests and 7,200 passed, while 3,868 of their results were withheld.
Out of 24,789 males who sat the tests, 8,872 made a successful pass, while 4,002 results were withheld for suspected collusion and other malpractices.
He said a total of 30,824 students at the junior high level made a successful pass out of the 49,771 that sat for the exams, although 53,213 candidates registered for the junior high tests.
“We have 16,809 or 54.53 percent males who made successful passes and 14,015 or 45.47 percent females made it as well. Only six results are being withheld for the junior high level across the country,” he said.
Mr. Gayvolor attributed the mass failure to some of the misinformation propagated by media houses that students were writing the same tests cancelled in May this year.
Mr. Gayvolor further praised his team at the WAEC for working tirelessly to ensure that the results are available in the first week of August, as promised.
The complete table of the results, including passes, failures and those that were withheld.