Candidates record 90% failure in NECO

MARCH 29, 2012 BY AGENCY REPORTER 

Ninety per cent of candidates who sat for the 2011 November/December Senior School Certificate Examinations of the National Examination Council failed the examination, the National Examinations Council Registrar, Prof. Promise Okpala, has said.

Okpala said this while announcing the release of the NECO results at a press briefing in Minna on Wednesday.

The report was monitored by our correspondent on Channels Television on Wednesday night.

According to him, only 10 per cent out of the 110,724 candidates that sat for the examinations scored credit and above in the core subjects including English Language.

Credit passes in these two subjects are required for university admission in the country. This will be the fifth year that NECO SSCE candidates would churn turn out a woeful performance.

For instance, only 20.10 per cent of the candidates that sat for the 2010 November/December NECO SSCE made credit passes in English Language while 34.18 per cent passed Mathematics.

Also, in the same examination in 2009, 98 per cent of the 234,682 candidates that sat for the examination failed to obtain five credits in subjects including English and Mathematics.

NECO that year stated that only 4,223 candidates got five credits in subjects including English and Mathematics.

However, Okpala, while releasing the results, noted that there was an improvement in the performance of candidates in Mathematics. According to him, 41 per cent of the candidates obtained credit pass and above as compared to the 17 per cent recorded in the same subject in 2010.

It was also observed that only five per cent scored credit pass and above in Islamic studies while less than one per cent scored credit pass and above in Christian religious studies.

SOURCE: The Punch, 29 March 2012. http://www.punchng.com/