WAEC Does Not Have Databank Of Released Results

Posted by admin Latest Politics Sunday, January 9th, 2011

The West African Examination Council (WAEC), the highest examination body in Nigeria brought the gross incompetence in handling public information to the fore last week when it failed to produce statistics on past results it has released.

For an examination body handling a magnitude of information, which could be rightly regarded as a public utility, it was an impossible task to make its records available when approached.

The council, established as far back as 1952, was approached by the LEADERSHIP Correspondent at its Lagos Headquarters, but all efforts to get data needed for research and analysis of how secondary students have fared in the past years proved abortive.

An official of the council (name withheld) told the reporter that it would take the whole day to get the information she is requesting for and he does not even have such time.

He explained that there are several volumes of files to be opened, searched and hand-copied and the process would take the whole day before such information could be gathered.

“Madam, what you asking for is very voluminous. It is not what I can just lay my hands on because there are a lot of files we need to bring out and search through. This will take a whole day”, he said.

It would be perplexing to note that WAEC at this age of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), does not have an organised central data bank, which every Nigerian should be able to obtain whatever information required at any point in time at the press of a button.

Nigerians have been apprehensive of the results released annually by the council and efforts by LEADERSHIP to serve the public and probably the policy makers with veritable information on how to improve the system have been halted by the systemic decadence and the unfortunate culture of poor record keeping.

Not only do Nigerians have to grapple with the poor performance of students in WAEC exams, they also have to be denied the opportunity of getting hold of information, if not for anything, for reference purposes.

This has been the bane of the Nigerian education system, as non-availability of data makes it impossible to make adequate plans for the future. Keeping accurate data and making them available for public consumption should be one of the priorities of a big government agency such as WAEC.

The West African Examinations Council was established in 1952 following the acceptance of the Jeffery Report by the then colonial Government(s) in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Nigeria, Sierra-Leone and the Gambia; who passed appropriate ordinances in their Legislative Assemblies in 1951. The ordinances charged the Council with the responsibility of determining the examinations required in the public interest in West Africa, and empowered it to conduct such examinations and award appropriate certificates. The Jeffery Report had strongly recommended the setting up of a West African Examinations Council in the then four British colonies of Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra-Leone and The Gambia. Liberia later joined the Council in 1974.

-Leadership

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