By Aisha Tamba
The permanent secretary at the Ministry of Basic Secondary Education Ebrima Sisawo has revealed that the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations, Wassce, results are relatively very good this year.
Speaking at a press briefing yesterday PS Sisawo further disclosed that the overall results almost doubled that of last year in terms of success adding that the number of candidates qualifying for university entrance also doubled over last year’s figures.
The PS revealed that 2,797 candidates scored 5 credits or more this year, representing (21%) compared to 2,121 (15%) in 2018.
He said of this figure, 1,341 are female.
“Also an overall increase across the regions have been observed in 2019 compared to 2018. Some 1,123 candidates are from Region One, while 1,396 are from Region 2,” he said.
He added that there is a marked improvement for both English and Mathematics with 1401 candidates scoring credits in English whilst 2,548 candidates have credit in Mathematics.
“Only 9.8% of candidates failed completely (0 pass) in 2019 compared to 14.9% in 2018.”
He singled out and congratulated the three candidates from Nusrat who scored 8As and 7As and their principal ‘respectively’.
The PS further said there is now a stiff competition coming from the rural schools as evidenced by the performance of Essau Senior Secondary and particularly, Nemasu Senior Secondary School.
“Nemasu was a very weak school in 2017 which became an average performer in 2018, but interestingly, in 2019, it is among the best performing schools,” he acknowledged.
Sisawo said despite the achievements, his ministry will not be complacent “because there is still a big room for improvement.”
“That’s why we continue to come up with interventions to improve the system.
Some of the current interventions may include curriculum review, support to The Gambia College to improve teacher quality, continuous capacity building, embracing modern teaching methodology.
We would also want to make it clear that the ministry values this assessment results as it is an indication whether students are responding to the curriculum or otherwise,” he said.
