The Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) has described as unacceptable, the dips in the performance of students who sat for the 2021 WASSCE in subjects like Core Mathematics and English Language. The President of GNAPS Dr. Damasus Tuurosung explained that the situation is even more worrying when a comparative analysis is done on the performances of students who wrote the 2020 WASSCE and those who wrote this year. He said even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, when students had very little time with the teachers in the classrooms, the students performed better.
Dr. Tuurosong was however quick to say that the current predicament cannot be blamed on the students who sat for the exam. “Every assessor of people’s educational fortunes will tell you that if you have a situation where about half of the students who sit for an exam fail, you cannot blame the students,” he said.
“When you have a situation like that, you cannot even blame the students, particularly when it is an external examination. You cannot blame it on the fact that the exam was difficult or anything like that. It means the learning environment is sick. A diagnosis must be done to fish out exactly what the sickness in the environment is and it must be fixed,” he said.
He said this when he spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show. It will be recalled that WAEC released provisional results for persons who wrote this year’s WASSCE. In the statement signed by the Head of Public Affairs Mrs. Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, the Council explained that “the provisional results indicate, that there were improvements in the performance of candidates at Grades A1 to C6 in Integrated Science and Social Studies in 2021 as against 2020. On the other hand, English Language and Mathematics (Core) recorded a decline in the performance of candidates at Grades A1 to C6 in 2021 as compared to 2020”.
The President of GNAPS said the situation was “too sad and too sad” as the only subject that helped the candidates save face was Integrated Science where performances improved.
Background
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has released provisional results of candidates, who sat for the WASSCE for School Candidates, 2021 in Ghana. WAEC said it will make available login details to Heads of school to enable them print the statement of results of their candidates.
In a statement signed by the Head of Public Affairs Mrs. Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, WAEC cautioned the candidates against falling prey to the activities of scammers who promise to upgrade results for a fee. According to WAEC, a total of 446,352 candidates, made up of 221,439 (49.6 %) males and 224,913 (50.4 %) females from 965 schools sat for the examination. This figure is 18.8% higher than the 2020 figure of 375,763. A total of 3,545 (0.79 %) of the candidates who registered were absent from the examination.
WAEC through the statement indicated that some 54.08 percent of students who sat for the exam passed the English Language. Another 54.11 who sat for the exam passed the mathematics subject while some 65.70 percent of candidates passed in Integrated Science. The statement indicated that 66.03 percent of candidates passed the Social Studies exam.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
