The Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Alhaji Mohammed Haroun Cambodia has described commentary that the 2016 WASSCE results as the worst Ghana has ever recorded, as palpable lies.
Alhaji Cambodia said it cannot be true because the 2016 results released by the West Africa Examination Council was one of the best the country has recorded in a fairly long time.
To bolster his claim, the director focused attention on data on students’ performance in exams for the preceding years, which he said were less stellar than this year’s.
He explained that, in 2011, out of 58, 648 candidates that sat for the WASSCE exam, 38.1% scored aggravate A1 to C6. Such grades, he added, are qualifying scores for entry into tertiary institutions.
In 2012, out of 73,307 candidates, 42.16% got A1 to C6 qualifying them to enter into tertiary institutions. The 2013 figures according to the GES director, was 108, 697 candidates who sat for the exam and out of that those who scored A1to C6 was 29.13%.
In 2014, out of 68,4 74 candidates, 28.46% had between A1 and C6. In 2015, 45,070 sat for the exam and those who scored A1 C6 was 16.3%.
In 2016, 274,262 sat for the exam and out of that 67,413 candidates had A1 and C6 representing 24.1%.
These numbers, the director explained, in terms of average indicate an improvement contrary to uninformed analysis of the figures per year.
The West African Examinations Council on Tuesday released the 2016 WASSCE results, describing them as “slightly better” than that of 2015, but there has been mixed reaction to the results by some people who believe otherwise.
From WAEC, he said 54.93 per cent of this year’s candidates passed social studies as against last year’s 51.27 per cent. A total of 53.19 passed English Langauge this year as against last year’s 49.83 per cent.
For Mathematics, 32.83 percent passed this year, while only 23.91 percent passed last year. Also, 48.48 per cent passed integrated science this year as against last year’s 23.2 per cent.
1,576 candidates had some of their subject results cancelled while 598 candidates had their entire results cancelled
Alhaji Haroun who was responding to criticism of the results urged the critics to be factual, and at the same time should be aware that they are throwing dust in the eyes of the public.