The Lagos State Government said its investment in education has yielded dividend as the state’s public schools recorded a 50.41 per cent pass in the 2016 result of the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate (WASSCE).
The result represents the best performance of the state in the examination since 2007.
Mr Adesina Odeyemi, Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Education, said this in a statement on Friday in Lagos.
According to the statement, a breakdown of the result obtained from the examination body revealed that out of the 44,108 candidates who sat for the examination, 22,233, representing 50.41 per cent, got credits in a minimum of five subjects, including Mathematics and English.
“This is a major improvement on the result of 2015 which saw 15,542 students, representing 37.27 per cent, obtaining credits in at least five subjects, including English and Mathematics, out of the 45,991 who sat for the examination.
“A total of 24,069, representing 54.57 per cent, got credits in a minimum of five subjects, including Mathematics and 27,885 candidates, representing 63.22 per cent, got credits in a minimum of five subjects, including English.
The permanent secretary said this was a very commendable result when compared to the statistics obtained in 2015.
“A total of 18,094 students out of 41,697, representing 43.39 per cent, recorded credit passes in at least five subjects, including Maths and 20,731 students, representing 49.71 per cent, in five subjects including English respectively in 2015.
“Also, 22,524 candidates, representing 53.33 per cent candidates got four credits including Mathematics and English; while 25,999 candidates representing 58.94 per cent got four credits including Mathematics.
“30,635 candidates, representing 69.45 per cent, got four credits, including English.
“This is a direct reflection of the investment of government in training and welfare of its staff.
“For instance, 300 Mathematics teachers were trained on effective classroom delivery of the subject at a cost of N4.5M, while 100 Physics teachers were also trained on the same class delivery of subjects”.
Adesina recalled that the state government had in 2015 organised a Mock Examination for the students as part of efforts to groom them ahead of WASSCE.
“The result of the mock examination showed that 41.06 per cent of the students obtained credits in five subjects, including Mathematics and English, a feat that encouraged the government to pay the sum of N561,346,100 for the 2016 WASSCE, ” he said. (NAN)