The Head of the Nigeria National Office of the West African Examinations Council, Dr Amos Dangut, has stressed the need for a critical review of the existing human and material resources in schools to improve the performance of Nigerian students in public examinations.
Dangut made the call during a recent press briefing at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos.
His remarks followed concerns over the recent dominance of Ghanaian students in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, as he questioned the availability of qualified teachers and adequate learning facilities in Nigerian schools.
Ghanaian students dominated the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination results, producing the top three candidates in the examination for school candidates.
During the 74th Annual Council Meeting of WAEC, held in March, three Ghanaian students: Huda Suleman, Paula Suwo and Matthea Andoh, were adjudged to have recorded the highest cumulative scores among 2,612,830 candidates from The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Speaking on the development, Dangut queried the adequacy of infrastructure and laboratories needed to support effective teaching and learning in schools.
He noted that WAEC’s responsibility was to provide examination data and information, while education planners and managers should utilise the data to formulate policies capable of improving performance.
“So if in these few years we are observing this, ours is to provide the data, the information. And it is for education planners and managers to take it and formulate policies that will change it. We are not really a research organisation.
“To do that, we provide the data. But you and I know that we have to step up on the things that we know. We have to look at the human and material resources in our learning environment.
“When you talk of humans, do the schools have adequately qualified teachers? This is a question to answer.
“The facilities, are there sufficient examination facilities? Are the laboratories well-equipped? Is the environment conducive to teaching and learning? And so on,” Dangut added.
He, however, noted that the Ghana feat was only recent, noting that Nigeria had, in years past, dominated in producing top-performing WASSCE candidates.
“You see, the world is dynamic. If you follow the trend in performance, there were times Nigerians were the ones collecting all the prizes.
In the 2025 WASSCE, only 754,545 out of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat for the examination obtained credits and above in at least five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, representing 38.32 per cent.
