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The National Bureau of Statistics has released a breakdown of the results of West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) from 2019 to 2021 in Nigeria.

According to NBS, a total of 1.53 million candidates sat for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination in 2020, indicating a decline of 3.25% compared to 1.58 million in 2019.

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Of this, private and public schools recorded 707,478 and 830,756 candidates, lower compared to 710,552 and 879,431 respectively in 2019.

By 2021, the total candidates who sat for the examination was 1.56 million, an increase of 1.42% from 1.53 million in 2020. Out of this, 721,666 sat in private schools, indicating an increase of 2.01% compared to the preceding year, while 838,486 sat in public schools, showing an increase of 0.93%.

This further shows a higher number of candidates in public schools than in private schools.

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Analysis by geo-political zone shows that the South-West recorded the highest candidates over the reporting period, followed by the South-South.

Breakdown of performance

Analysis of performance trend shows a higher percentage success rate among private schools than public.

NBS data showed that in the 2021 examination 73 percent of public school’s candidates scored a total with 5 credits and above including English and Mathematics.

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While Private schools’ candidates recorded a 86.55 percent exam success with 5 credits and above including English and Mathematics.

Breakdown of performance by States

On a state-by-state basis, data show the overall best States for private schools candidates are Edo (92.8%), Enugu (92.7%), and Anambra ( 92.2%).

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Other states in the top 10 are Benue: 91.5%, Ebonyi: 90.5%, Cross river: 90.2%, Delta: 89.5%, Rivers: 89%, Sokoto: 87.3% and Nasarawa: 87.1%.

For the Public schools the best States are led by Enugu: 93.9%, Edo: 93.5%, Benue: 91.7%, Ebonyi: 91.3%, Anambra: 91.2%, C/river: 90.6%.

Others are Rivers: 88.1%, Delta: 87.7%, Bayelsa: 86.4% and Abia: 86.1%.

Breakdown of performance by zone

When it comes to performance by zones, private candidates who scored above 5 credits including Mathematics and English are South-South: 89.4%, South East: 87.8%, North Central: 81.0%, South West: 76.2%, North East: 71.2% and North West: 69.3%.

For public school candidates, the performance by zones stands at:

1, South East — 89.8%

2, South South — 88.1%

3, North Central — 76.5%

4, North East — 68.1%

5, South West — 62.9%

6, North West — 61.5%

Take aways from candidates’ performance

This aggregation of data is very consequential in many ways, especially for candidates of public schools.

No northern State’s performance features in the list of top 10 States and the average performance is dropping yearly.

The gap in performance between the north and south is now also widening.

This, again, shows the impact of insecurity and other factors in the quality of education in the region.

In all, the most curious part of the data is the performance of students from South-West States.

The average performance of public schools in South-West region is the lowest in the last five years.

(Ripples)