Folashade Siyanbola
The West African Examinations Council has given reasons candidates who sit for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination conducted by the council fail major subjects every year.
The reasons are contained in the Chief Examiners’ Reports on previous examination conducted by the council and made available to candidates on the examination body’s website.
WAEC Nigeria Head of Public Affairs, Mr. Demianus Ojijeogu, in a statement, urged candidates to visit the site and learn how to avoid subsequent errors that result in candidates recording below average performance.
“Do you want to know why candidates who sat previous WAEC examinations performed below expectations? To satisfy your quest and learn how to avoid subsequent errors that make candidates record below average performance, log on to: https://www.waeconline.org.ng/e-learning and check the Chief Examiners’ Reports from 2008 to 2018,” he said.
According to him, the primary aim of this initiative is to equip the students for better performance in future examinations.
He added, “Students performances on previous examinations are analysed with the secondary aim of detecting the weaknesses and proffer a solution for all stakeholders concerned with Senior Secondary School Examinations.
“On this platform, you will find resources for all WAEC approved subjects that will help you to understand the standards required for success in respective Examinations.”
The Chief Examiner on the website points out that candidates exhibited weakness in the following areas in the 2018 examination: Mensuration Set Theory Distances and Bearings Inequality, Graphical Solutions to Quadratic Equations and reading from the graph, Vector, Statistics, inadequate preparation, poor interpretation of questions , approximation and rounding up collusion among Candidates.
The Chief Examiner, however, suggests that to overcome the challenges stated teachers are to teach the candidates the need to understand how to form equations from word problems, adequate preparations by the candidates, school managements should endeavour to employ qualified teachers to teach the subject, teachers should make the teaching and learning of the subject much more interesting and practicable.
“Teachers are encouraged to give more worked problems during class lessons and assignments. Teachers and candidates are encouraged to cover the syllabus while preparing for examination so as to enhance performance. Centres where a huge amount of malpractice has been reported, such school should be warned and if it persists, such school should be blacklisted for at least two years. Approximation to given degrees of accuracy should be emphasized and seminars and workshops should be organised for Mathematics teachers.”
For English Language, the report lists the weaknesses observed to include poor paragraphing; poor expression as a result of wrong concord, poor punctuation marks, wrong use of tenses, poor use of prepositions and articles; failure to grasp the requirements and demands of some questions attempted; inability to construct simple and correct sentences; and wrong use of the first person pronoun “I”.
Others include: writing below the required number of words on the essay topics; illegible handwriting; use of SMS language such as “u” for you; “4” for for, spelling errors; wrong use of the word “cause” instead of “because”, “there” for “their”; poor knowledge of the basic rules of English grammar; mindless lifting of answers from the passage and inability to restate in the candidate’s own words, ideas contained in the passage. Examiner, however, suggests that candidates should endeavour to improve on their vocabulary and grammar in English Language through extensive reading; acquaint themselves with the techniques of answering questions; take time to understand the exact demands of questions before attempting to answer them; draw up an outline to organise their thoughts before writing their essays; read through their work to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes before submitting their scripts; practice essay writing constantly; converse regularly in simple and correct English expressions.
“Candidates who lack knowledge of the rudiments of English Language and the right approach to summary and comprehension questions will continue to perform poorly. The only way to overcome the weaknesses highlighted every year is to study well and practice constantly,” it states.
Other categories like Civil and Mechanical, Applied Sciences, Languages, Sciences, Business, General Paper and Home Economics were also highlighted on the website by the Examiner.
