ANAMBRA COMES FIRST AGAIN IN WASSCE

he education reforms embarked upon by Anambra State in the last couple of years has continued to yield results, as schools in the state emerged the overall best in the 2014 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), a repeat of the feat recorded last year.
The official WAEC result made available to the media showed that Anambra State with 65.92 per cent, Abia State with 58.52 per cent and Edo State 57.82 per cent came topmost.
Nevertheless, eight of the 36 states in Nigeria recorded a score less than 10 per cent. They are Adamawa, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi,  Gombe, Bauchi and Yobe states.
The percentage of the total number of candidates that obtained a minimum of five credits, including English Language and General Mathematics, was 31.21 per cent as against 30.90 per cent, 37.66 per cent and 36.57 per cent for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 WASSCE. This, according to WAEC, implied that the average performance of the candidates in the May/June 2014 WASSCE was lower than that of 2013.

Commenting on the feat by Anambra State, education experts from and outside the state, linked it to the courageous return of schools, hitherto thought as impossible, to the missionaries in 2010 by the former governor, Mr. Peter Obi, who thereafter, continued to pay the salaries of tutorial and non-tutorial staff as well as provided direct funding to the missionaries, that enabled them to rehabilitate the schools and provide learning materials and facilities.
Recall that the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, predicted what is happening in Anambra State, when he visited the state under Governor Obi, during the launch of the distribution of 25,000 computers, 450 numbers of 50 KVA generators and 500 school buses to schools in the state.
Commending Obi for investing heavily in education through judicious use of federal and state funds to rehabilitate schools in the state, Wike had said he would advise that Obi’s policies be replicated throughout the country.
The Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr. Suleman Dikko, had at another event, during presentation of cheques of over N1 billion to public and missionary schools for the provision of infrastructure, expressed surprise at the transformation of schools in the state in the area of provision of computers, internet connectivity, sick bays, libraries, buses, generators, among others, and said that with what he witnessed, Anambra would soon become the leading light in education in the country.
The former governor could not be reached for his reaction as he was said to be away in the United States of America, attending the World Igbo Congress.