Minkailu Bah, Minister of Education
By Fasalie Sulaiman Kamara
An analysis by the West Africa Examination Council of this year’s results for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) shows that figures for 2013 decreased by 8.26% over last year’s figure of 82,907.
According to the document announcing the release of the results, 76,057 candidates entered for the examination that was conducted for 672 junior secondary schools in 202 centres countrywide. Some 37,172 candidates had passes in five subjects, representing 48.87% and 9,013 candidates had passes in four subjects, representing 11.85%.
The western region had the highest number of passes in five subjects with 15,406. Northern Province came second with 12,749 passes in five subjects, followed by the east with 5,087 passes in five subjects and southern region with 3,930 passes in five subjects.
Hundreds of results were cancelled for scores of schools owing to exams malpractice.
According to the analysis, performance in two core subjects, Integrated Science and Mathematics, showed upward trend while Language Arts and Social Studies showed a downward spiral.
It also indicates that eight candidates got the best results with aggregates six. They are Foday Sesay of Beacon High School (Freetown), Osman Juldeh Bah of the Sierra Leone Grammar School (Freetown), Isatu Manneh of Modern High School (Freetown), Sieh Mansaray of Prince of Wales school (Freetown), John Kpaka of Government Secondary School in Bo, Alieu Alghali of the Sierra Leone Grammar school, Milla Boima of Modern High School and Mohamed Kamara of the Sierra Leone Grammar School.
Nine other candidates had aggregates of 7 as against 8 in 2012; 23 had aggregates of 8 as against 13 in 2012. 44 had aggregates of 9 as against 18 in 2012 and 55 had aggregates 10 as against 38 in 2012.
The best performing school in the Western Area are the Providence International School, Dele Peddles International, Modern School of Science and Business and UCC Tower Hill. In the Eastern region were Henrietta, UBC, JSS Kenema and Cluny Free the Children in Koidu. And in the South were SOS Herman Gmeiner in Bo, among others.
Head of the national office at WAEC in Sierra Leone, Sheriff Mustapha Sapateh, said “the performance of candidates continues to improve”, and encouraged candidates to put more efforts in their schooling.
He commended the government, parents and teachers for their various inputs into the success of the candidates.
(C) Politico 21/11/13
