Dear editor,
The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, MoBSE, is at it again!
I can vividly remember in 2018 when some new outlets reported that there was an unprecedented decline in the performance of students who sat to the WAEC exams with 475 candidates qualifying for university entrance.
MoBSE came out through its former PS Momodou Jallow to deny the report, saying the figure reported has failed to input that 2,183 candidates have five credits or more with passes in English and Mathematics.
In 2020, Permanent Secretary Louis Moses Mendy told a press briefing last week that 13,422 candidates sat the WAEC exams out of which a total of 2882 candidates have scored 5 credits or more with 1519 girls and 1363 boys.
The PS’s analysis of the performances this year was in great disparity with what was published by WAEC on The Standard Newspaper advertisement column yesterday.
According to WAEC, a total of 14, 353 candidates from 129 senior schools. Out of this the Council stated that 658 candidates obtained credit passes in five subjects and above including Maths and English. On a gender basis, 329 male candidates had credit passes in five subjects and above including maths and English. While 329 female candidates had credit passes in five subjects and above including English and Mathematics.
The continuous great disparities between MoBSE and WAEC must be scrutinised. Is the ministry trying to mislead Gambians to give the impression that they have been doing their work well knowing that decline in performance would mean their work would be in question?
They need to come clean and stop misleading the public so that we can go back to the drawing board to rectify our mistakes and what is informing the mass failure in WASSCE.
Alhagie T Bojang
Mariama Kunda, WCR
