Abdoulie John
The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MOBSE), Mohammed B.S. Jallow, has debunked the massive failure of students who sat the just concluded West African Senior School Examination Certificate (WASSCE). He blamed the media for wrongly interpretating the results.
“Education as we all know has a crucial role to play in the development of our country’s human resource base,” MOBSE second-in-command told reporters during a news conference held at their office in Kanifing on Tuesday.
The release of the 2018 examination results has provoked waves of reactions across the country, prompting many people to accuse the Education Ministry of failing in its duty to provide quality education for students.
“The apprehension is further fueled by different analysis and ibterpretations of the results,” Mr. Jallow deplored.
Weighing in on media reports indicating that 475 candidates have passed the WASSCE 2018 examination, Jallow said the figure represents the number of candidates with 5 credits including English and Math.
“The reports being circulated interprets everybody outside this figure as failure. 2,183 candidates have five credits or more in 2018, compared to 1,656 in 2017,” Jallow disclosed, adding that out of the 2,183 candidates with five credits or more, 1,029 are female.
“Apart from the candidates with 9 credits, all other credits and pass rates have increased compared to 2017. Only 14.9% in 2018 failed completely compared to 21.7% in 2017,” he remarked.
Up to 2 million candidates have sat to the WASSCE 2018 exam in the West African subregion including over 13,000 candidates from The Gambia.
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