No University Education for over 140,000 Free SHS students: Here is why

WAEC has successfully released the WASSCE results of candidates who sat the 2022 WASSCE for school candidates, however, an average of 140,000 of the Free SHS students failed in at least one core subject during the 2022 WASSCE. This translates into an average of 20% of students failing each core subject.

Per the general cut-off point for admission into tertiary institutions, candidates must obtain between A1 and C6 to merit admission into tertiary institutions. WAEC’s released results showed that 134,103 (39.61%) students scored between D7 and F9 for the English Language paper. Again, 99, 579 representing 38.61 failed to obtain between A1 and C6 in Mathematics. In the case of Integrated Science and Social Studies, 98565 (37.55%)  and 100,185 (28.49%) failed as they obtained D7 to F9 respectively.

The above-average 144,144 candidates failed at least one core subject. While WAEC’s result analysis indicates “shows an upward trend in the performance of candidates at Grade C6 and better at Social Studies over the three-year period (2020-2022)”, the reality is that over 100,000 candidates failed the Social Studies paper and that must be a worry because the failure rate in real numbers is higher compared to that of Mathematics and Integrated Science.

The reality is that more Free SHS Students are failing the WASSCE and if the government is spending huge sums of scarce resources on students, in the areas of free textbooks, feeding, uniforms, etc, students should be doing far better than what we are seeing in the real numbers.

While WASSCE students with D7 in core subjects do not stand a chance of gaining admission to Universities such as the University of Ghana, KNUST, and UCC among others, for tertiary programmes, they may gain admission for Diploma programmes in any public university. Again, some Technical Universities may consider D7 for Higher National Diploma programmes

Another reality the data from WAEC does not provide which needs to be included in their report is the number of students who fail all four core subjects or three, two, and even one to help peruse the statistics further.

Another question that WAEC’s data failed to clearly indicate is how many D7s, E8s, and F9s were obtained in all. This also helps us to appreciate not only the pass rate but also the volume of such bad grades as well.

Out of the four core subjects considered, the total A1s to C6s obtained were 1,067,428 however 145,734D7s were recorded, 124,622 E8s were obtained and 162,076 F9s were not left out. These figures should be of worry to the government, parents, and the public. If our candidates continue to enjoy Free SHS and still manage to produce such appalling results, then what is the justification for investing in them?