WAEC gives tips to enhance candidates’ excellence performance in May\June exam

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has shared tips for Nigerian candidates sitting for the May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) on how to achieve the best results among their peers from the other four member countries — Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia.

The Head of National Office, WAEC Nigeria, Dr Amos Dangut, gave the tip in an exclusive chat with Nigerian Tribune when asked to react to the Ghanaian candidates consistently winning the council’s top three international excellence awards year-in, year-out.

Recall that students from Ghana emerged as the top three candidates with the best results in the last May\June WASSCE and also in the 2023 edition, beating their peers from other four WEAC’s member countries including Nigeria, which presented 73.5 per cent of the entire candidates who sat the exam across the five-member countries.

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The trio Ghanaian students, who are now undergraduates in Ghanaian universities, were David Nii Commey Ankrah (Ist prize), Henschel Tabi Frempong-Manso (2nd prize), and Benedict Ofori Debrah (3rd prize).

However, Dangut said even though it is not easy to say, the reality remains that in a class, somebody must have to come first, second and third and so forth in any exam including that of WAEC.

“And if you don’t come first,” he argued, “What you need to do as a student is to re-examine yourself on why you didn’t come first and then restrategise for better result in the future.

“That is exactly what I would expect Nigerian educationists to critically look into so as identify the factors militating against students’ outstanding performance, especially as regards winning the International Excellence Awards, and then address them.”

But when asked about the possibility of the exam questions and marking schemes working against Nigerian candidates, Dangut dismissed such thinking, saying “WAEC uses the same syllabus, question papers and marking schemes for each subject for all its candidates across the five-member countries and also ensure that the examiners undergo the same training.

“So, we apply the same standard as far as our exams are concerned for all our candidates across member countries,” he emphasised.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE