It is not right that students fail Maths under my regime – Yaw Osei Adutwum
Education Minister Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum being a Mathematician himself with a wealth of experience in teaching Mathematics over the years is not impressed with statistics of the pass rate of the Mathematics paper in this year’s West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) as he lamented that, the pass rate for Mathematics should not have dropped under his tenure.
His complaints are coming on the back of his analysis of the recently released WASSCE results by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) on 8th December 2021.
Per the statement coming from the examination body concerning the subject Mathematics, 54.11% passed in 2021 as compared to 65.71% in 2020.
If the statistics are anything to go by then over 45% of candidates who sat for this year’s WASSCE failed Mathematics.
The Minister who also doubles as a legislator for Bosomtwe was optimistic that issues that contributed to the drop will be probed and resolved.
“Actually, the average is 60 per cent, certain subjects [rate] went up, others dipped but if you put it on average it is still 60 per cent.
“So, if you look at English for example, there was a dip, Mathematics there was a dip but Integrated Science saw [a]huge jump and Social Studies saw an increase and so overall, the average is still 60 per cent.
“But on the hand[sic]” he added “I just want to assure you that Mathematics should not see a dip in my time as somebody who has taught Mathematics. So we are going to look at what went wrong and what we can do, which school did so well and then we are going to look at how best to ensure that we move up.
“The good news is that two years in a row, we had in the core subjects seen 50 per cent plus pass rate which means more students will then qualify to go to the university because in the past years, what happened was, you may have 70 per cent or 80 per cent pass in social studies, and mathematics is 33 per cent. Because mathematics is 33 per cent, you can’t have more than 33 per cent of the students going to the university. So, if English is 30 per cent, even if all the subjects are 70 per cent, you can’t have more than 30 per cent going to the university.
“The moment you move English and Mathematics up then you are guaranteed a higher rate of entry into the universities. So this is good news for the country.”
Reports from the provisional WASSCE results released by WAEC indicate that a total number of 1,339 subject results and 174 entire results in WASSCE have been cancelled due to malpractices such as bringing foreign material including mobile phones into the examination hall, tearing off parts of question papers and collusion during the examinations.
“The Entire Results of 3,667 candidates have been withheld pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of examination malpractice detected during and after the conduct of the examination.’’
By: Stella Annan | myactiveonline.com Twitter @activetvgh
