The District Education Officer (DEO) of the Left Bank # 1A education district of Montserrado County, Rev. Peter Knowlden, has expressed optimism that high school students attending the special tutoring program launched by the Ministry of Education will score high at the next WASSCE Exams due in April this year.
WASSCE is the acronym for the West African Senior School Certificate Exams, administered in affiliating West African countries to senior secondary school students as a final test for their graduation.
WASSCE is an international examination administered by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which is Africa’s foremost examining board established by law to determine the examinations required in the public interest in the English-speaking West African countries, to conduct the examinations and to award certificates comparable to those of equivalent examining authorities internationally.
Liberia, through its Ministry of Education, administered National Exams for many years until WAEC exams replaced them in the 1990s. The WASSCE was introduced as part of the educational reform programmes of member West African countries. The maiden edition was conducted in The Gambia in 1998. The examination was first taken by Liberian students in 2018. WASSCE is conducted twice a year, May/June for school candidates and November/ December for private candidates.
One unique feature of WASSCE is that it combines school-based continuous assessment scores with the Council’s own terminal assessment scores on a ratio of 30:70.
At Liberia’s first sitting in 2018, there was mass failure in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). The exams were administered to over 33,979 candidates from 600 Senior High Schools across the country, and only 11,544 candidates, representing 33.85%, made a successful pass.
This bad result drew criticisms from across the country, prompting the Government to take steps this year to improve their passing score. The Ministry of Education recruited the cream of their teachers from across the country and assigned them to centers in each education district to tutor 12th graders for the exams in a special program.
The ministry developed modules from a blend of the national curriculum and subjects appearing in past exams, and these are the basis of the tutoring currently ongoing on Saturdays since November last year. Teachers participating in the program are paid a weekly stipend which is paid every two weeks. The program is expected to end in mid April.
Asked why he thinks the passing score will improve, the all-alert and disciplined district education officer identified two reasons: first, that his teachers are highly motivated by the stipend structure and are therefore attending and giving their all to help prepare the students. “Secondly”, he said, “the students are excited that they are being very closely guided in their preparation for the exams, and are attending in regularly and responding well to their lessons.”
There are 3 centers in the Saturday tutoring program within the Left Bank # 1A education district covering Barnersville Township. The centers are at E Jonathan Goodridge High School, hosting 2 schools, Noah’s Ark High School, hosting 5 schools, and Liberia Dujar High School, hosting 4 schools. Each center is managed by a supervisor under the direction of the DEO. The national program is managed by a coordinator, based at the Ministry of Education.
During my unannounced visit to the centers at E Jonathan Goodridge and Liberia Dujar High School, it was encouraging to see that the teachers and students were seriously engaged with the work of the day – their lessons.
Rev Peter Knowlden and his team are upbeat that the program will yield the anticipated results this year. Asked if he thought the national score will improve from 33.85% to reach 50%, Rev. Knowlden predicted that the national score will not be less than 80%.