The Editor
On 6 July 2018 your online news service published a story about the 2018 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results as were released by the West African Examinations Council
(WAEC) Monrovia National Office on 5 July 2018 that only 11, 544 candidates representing 34.85 percent of candidates who sat the examination made a successful pass in individual subjects.
For the last few days now there has not been a single day when people did not lash at the students and blame them for mass failure, thereby ignoring the fact that authorities of WAEC Monrovia Office are mainly to blame for the mass failure because of the deceptive reports they gave to the WAEC Board about the results of the pilot project that students in Liberia are up to the task for WASSCE Examination –
stating that Liberia educational system is up to standard, contrary to assertions of it being “messy”.
Last September, WAEC Liberia Boss, Mr. Dale G. Gbotoe called on a local radio in Monrovia and made similar claims.
WAEC Liberia Boss is fully aware that the WASSCE Syllabus and the currently used Liberian Ministry of Education Curricula are two worlds apart; as a result, the discrepancies in contents make students
inadequately prepared for the WASSCE examination. For example, of all the at least 10 recommended senior high English Literature textbooks in the WASSCE Syllabus, the WASSCE Syllabus and the MOE Curriculum have only one (textbook) in common (The Concubine). Information about the new textbooks for English Literature and other prescribed WASSCE textbooks has not been disseminated properly. Also, the scarcity of the textbooks is another major challenge. More to this, other subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology came out as the most challenging subjects because they had a lot of strange topics that cannot be found in the MOE Curricula.
Authorities of WAEC Liberia Office are also fully aware that the few Liberian students who made a successful pass in individual subjects of the WASSCE Examination are mostly students of schools that
participated in the pilot phase of the exam and got familiar with the contents of the WASSCE Syllabus and exams. In 2013, some Liberian schools began taking the exam on a pilot basis, which was conducted
for roughly four years. Some of the schools are Firestone Senior High School in Margibi County, J.J. Roberts United Methodist School in Monrovia, St. Martin’s Catholic High School in Gbarnga – Bong County, SOS Hermann Gmeiner High School in Monrovia, The Salvation Army William Booth High School in Paynesville, and so on.
Sadly, WAEC Liberia authorities ignored the fact that the results of the pilot exams were not satisfactory and went ahead to deceive the WAEC Board that Liberia was prepared for the WASSCE Examination.
They know very well that it takes time for a seed to germinate and bear fruits.
Prior to the exams this year, school administrators and other stakeholders of the sector said that administering the exams in Liberia was too early and that improving the system before introducing the tests is preferable considering the enormous challenges facing the Liberian school system. Without any consideration of such concerns, the students were constrained and coerced to take the exams thereby
resulting to mass failure. Such downplay is enough reason for a court action against WAEC Liberia authorities.
Even though I appreciate the government’s intervention to exercise restraints in making policy decisions, especially those affecting students, based on this year’s WASSCE results, the Ministry of
Education should act promptly to improve the system before another of such examination is administered.
Instead of lashing at students for failing the exams, let us mainly blame WAEC Liberia authorities for misinforming WAEC Board that Liberia is prepared for the exam; and at the same time, let us (as a
country) immediately start addressing other fundamental issues that contributed to the mass failure. These include lack of laboratories and libraries in secondary schools (esp. government schools) and worst of all the disparity in the contents of WASSCE Syllabus and MOE Curricula.
Respectfully yours,
Adam Togba
Youth Activist and Educator
[email protected]
New Matadi Estate
Sinkor, Monrovia