Reasons For Mass Failure in WAEC Revealed

Finally, the reasons for the continuous mass failure in the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations, WASSCE, were revealed over the weekend in a meeting.It would be recalled that a few months ago the West African Examination Council (WAEC), announced that out of the 1,593,442 candidates that sat for the May/June examination, only 616,370 (38.68%) obtained credits in five subjects including Mathematics and English Language.More than half of the candidates who sat for the May/June 2015 WASSCE could not advance to higher institutions because they failed English and Mathematics.The two core subjects are compulsory for admission into tertiary institutions, especially the university.It is not news that the country has recorded many cases of mass failure in the examination in the past five years.According to the examination body, it has been observed that one of the major contributing factors for the failure includes the use of abbreviations, like ”˜u’ for ”˜you’ in writing.Most of these candidates are poor in English language, especially written English. The Nigeria Examinations Committee, NEC, revealed this in a communiqué issued at the end of its 60th meeting held in Lagos last week.Mr. Demianus Ojijeogu, the Public Affairs Officer of the Council observed that many candidates failed because of spelling errors, misinterpretation of questions, illegible handwriting and poor interpretation of technical terms.