Over 500,000 Nigerian Students fail English, Mathematics in 2024 WASSCE

The West African Examination Council said, over 500,000 students of Nigeria origin failed its English and Mathematics WASSCE examination.

Head of WAEC’s office in Nigeria, Amos Dangut stated this, while lamenting the poor performance of students in core subjects.

The 2024 released results showed that a total of 503,275 candidates failed to pass English Language and Mathematics, representing a significant portion of the 1.8 million students who sat for the examination.
According to Amos Dangut, Head of WAEC’s Nigeria Office, the results show a concerning trend of poor performance in core subjects.

The failure rate in English and Mathematics has raised concerns about the quality of education and the preparedness of students for higher learning.

Amos Dangut said out of the 1,805,216 who sat for the examination, only 1,301,941 candidates obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects including English language and mathematics.

He stressed that 1,301,941 candidates obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects including English language and mathematics at 72.12 per cent, revealing a 7.69 per cent drop in performance compared to 79.81 per cent recorded in 2023.

He said, “The analysis of statistics of candidates’ performance in the examination shows that out of the 1,805,216 candidates that sat the examination, 1,332,089 candidates, representing 73.79%, obtained credit and above in a minimum of any five subjects (i.e. with or without English Language and/or Mathematics).

“A total of 1,301,941 candidates, representing 72.12%, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics. Of this number, 628,820 i.e. 48.30% were male candidates, while 673,121 i.e. 51.70% were female candidates.

“A comparison of the percentage of candidates in this category in WASSCE for School 2023 and 2024, reveals that in this year’s (2024) WASSCE, there is 7.69% decrease in performance (that is, those who obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, was 79.81%),” he said.

SaharaReporters earlier reported that the regional examination body on Monday morning released the results of the 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination across Nigeria and withheld results of 215,267 candidates (representing 11.92 percent of the total) in connection with various reported cases of examination malpractice.

This was announced by the Examination Body via its X handle, urging all the candidates to visit their official website to check their results.

“The West African Examinations Council is pleased to inform Candidates who sat WASSCE for School Candidates, 2024 that the result has officially been released today, Monday, August 12, 2024,” WAEC announced.