The Oyo State government has said the state recorded its best result in the West African Senior School Certificate (WASSC) examinations in 18 years.
The government said its 54.18 per cent pass for pupils with a minimum of five credits, including Mathematics and English, was encouraging when compared to the national average of 59 per cent.
It said 29,174 candidates, representing 54.14 per cent, had a minimum of five credits of the 53,850, who sat for the examination.
The government said the 29,174 candidates consisted of 13,884 boys and 15,290 girls.
Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Toye Arulogun, gave the figures yesterday in Ibadan, the state capital.
He said this year’s average results had an improvement ratio of above 100 per cent over last year’s, which was 22.12 per cent.
Oyo State recorded 4.40 per cent in 1999, 3.59 per cent in 2000, 8.7 per cent in 2001, 6.93 per cent in 2002, 6.13 per cent in 2003, 9.17 per cent in 2004, 7.89 per cent in 2005, 10.40 per cent in 2006 and 6.16 per cent in 2007. 9.14 per cent in 2008, 11.92 per cent in 2009, 13.40 per cent in 2010, 16.97 per cent in 2011, 21.35 per in 2012, 21.79 in 2013, 19.19 per cent in 2014 and 21.61 per cent in 2015.
The commissioner noted that the improvement followed government’s renewed commitment to reverse the downward trend in the performance of pupils in WAEC and National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations.
He said the state also came second in last year’s NECO result ranking.
Arulogun said the government was awaiting the statistics on states’ performances from WAEC, adding that this was concluded on September 5 and will be sent to each state, according to WAEC’s Head of National Office, Mr. Olu Adenipekun.
He said Iseyin Local Government Area recorded 67.64 per cent, followed by Ibadan South West, with 67.53 per cent.
Others, he said, are: Irepo, 66.18 per cent; Oyo West, 63.95 per cent and Ido, 63.62 per cent.
Arulogun noted that these were the top five councils with good results in this year’s examinations.
According to him, Ibarapa North Local Government Area recorded 34.89 per cent; Surulere, 29.11 per cent; Ogbomoso South, 27.95 per cent; Itesiwaju, 21.01 per cent and Iwajowa, 10.28.
Arulogun said the listed councils had the least of candidates with a minimum of five credits, including Mathematics and English.
He said: “This is below our target as we are competing both within ourselves and at the national level. We want to reclaim our status as the Pace Setter. So, many policies have been introduced to ensure that our aspirations on quality education for the people of the state are achieved.
“We have cancelled automatic promotion in schools and introduced the School Government Board (SGB) OYOMESI, Education Trust Fund (ETF), WAEC Boot Camp, extra-mural classes, workers’ review for optimisation of work force.
“These and many other state government’s initiatives are yielding results.”