Africa 24

A student who had once sat to The West African Senior School Examination (WASSCE) is blaming The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) again for not publishing out his name among those qualified to sit to the exam this year.

Ibrahim Bangura, who registers at a school in Waterloo, complains that he is unhappy about this behaviour by the examining body.

He said the examining body, WAEC, wants to ruin his future by becoming a dropout.

Bangura is among a group of young Sierra Leoneans who are currently being frustrated over this issue of misplaced names while taking the WASSCE.

Over the years, some candidates have also been complaining of their results being withheld by the examinations council.

A number of students have been made dropouts for this reason as they could not trace out their WASSCE results, neither are there grades for them on results published in most cases.

Now, they said, The West African Senior School Certificate Examination ( WASSCE) is not a one-go-and-pass-all public exams again.

It is something that seems like a lucky card for just a few of the candidates now, they said.

Over the years many candidates have been complaining of mass failures because majority have their results withheld.

Africa 24 press was able to sample out the views of many of the disappointed students on this issue, which has been raised by lots of the students who have sat the WASSCE for at least once, or twice.

There are misgivings on this issue and the dominant blame is cast on the West Africa examination body, WAEC.

Often, when asked, the affected students would say: “we don’t know why our results are withheld by WAEC?”

Ibrahim Bangura is a new victim, a candidate of WASSCE about a year ago or so. Through a Whatsapp audio conversation on Monday, May 26th this year, he explained to our journalist why he has been hanging around in a community he lives in Waterloo, and he told us in Krio.

“Well, r be don sit WASSCE bot WAEC hol mi result…,” he said which is translated in English as: “Well, I have sat WASSCE once, but WAEC seized my result. I have decided to sit again this year but my name did not come up. As for now, I am not doing anything,” Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim like many of the WASSCE candidates have often blamed WAEC for either not publishing their results or having not seen their names out as qualified candidates to sit to the exam.

WAEC is the examining body of the English-speaking West African countries (Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gambia, and Ghana).

The West African Examination Council could not be available for comment to clarify why is it that many candidates’ results’ grades are sometimes, complained of, not being PUBLISHED but only in blank and without any explanation given for results published blank or being seized as claimed by many of the students.

Most times WAEC would just accurately list out the number of the passing students and candidates of the withholding results.

But they have never attempted to clearly explain to the public what are the reasons leading to the withholding of candidates’ grades on various subjects taken by each student in the WASSCE, this is according to our previous observation on WAEC many public notices.

Many students, parents, teachers and Sierra Leoneans occasionally have been denied “the right to know”, which is a fundamental human right in democratic state. Democracy prevails on where transparency and fair reporting on public interest matter is a golden principle in a modern country like Sierra Leone.