By Yunus S Saliu
Following the recent release of the WASSCE 2020 by the West African Examination Council, the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) has disclosed that out of 2,882 candidates with 5 Credits or more, 1, 519 (52.7%) are female candidates.
According to the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education 13,422 candidates sat to this year examinations, which, as per the distribution table of the candidates by Region and gender, 56% of candidates that sat to the exams are females while the rest percentage is males.
Given the breakdown of the results at MoBSE organized presser, Louise Moses Mendy Permanent Secretary MoBSE noted that not all those that registered for the examinations sat to it due to some circumstances from such candidates.
“As per our records,” he said, “13,422 candidates sat to the 2020 WASSCE and 56% of that number is female and the remaining percentage is male.”
According to him from 13,422 candidates that sat to the examination from Region 1 to 6 – 5,955 are male and 7,467 are female while “2,882 candidates have five credits or more in 2020 compared to 2,797 in 2019.”
He went on that number of candidates with 5 Credits or more by year 2020 is 2,882 (21.5%) compared to 2,797 (20.7%) of 2019, while out of the 2,882 candidates with 5 credits or more, 1,519 are female (52.7%) and “number of candidates with 5 Credits or more by gender in 2020 are 5 Credits Male 414, Female 498, 6 Credits Male 332, Female 375, 7 Credits Male 229, Females 319, 8Credits Male 185, Female 221, 9 Credits Male 203, Female 106 in total Male Credits is 1,363 while Female stands at 1,519 which sum up to 2,882”
PS Mendy emphasized that the Ministry appreciated students with As throughout and also those with flying results “but what we are most interested in is how many the students do we get to universities as just comparing to few who scored A+.”
In other words, “we have more students going to universities this year compared to last year and by way of contrast in 2018 we have 13% of the students who sat to WASSCE hat had no Credit at all. In 2019 we have 7.9% of the students who sat to WASSCE with no Credit at all and in 2020 4.7% of the students who sat to the WASCE without a Pass in any of the subjects. What that suggest is we have 13.% in 2018 but dropped to 7.9% in 2019 and further dropped to 4.7% in 2020.”
As Ministry, he said their target is to work towards ensuring that come next year 2021/2022 the Ministry would register no candidates without a Credit in any of the subjects “that’s our goal and that’s our interest and that’s what we will pursue.”
As part of the Ministry’s commitment, he said the Ministry wants to ensure that every candidate that sat to WASSEC exams will not fail all his or her subjects.
Congratulating officials of the Ministry, stakeholders, students and their teachers, the Permanent Secretary expressed that “our campaigns for the education of the girl child is now bearing fruits. Let’s continue the momentum to be able to see more of our female students go to the universities as desire.”
