The West African Examinations Council has said a total of 2,276,112 candidates sat for the Senior School Certificate Examination in The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, in 2022.
The council also honoured three candidates, two Ghanaians and one Nigerian, with the WAEC International Excellence Award for their outstanding performance in the West African SSCE.
The council made this known in a press statement issued by WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs, Demianus Ojijeogu, at the end of its 71st Annual Council Meeting in Banjul, The Gambia.
He said, “At the formal opening of the meeting, the council honoured three candidates with the WAEC International Excellence Award for their outstanding performance in the WASSCE for school candidates, 2022.
“They were Master Alex Opoku Manu, a Ghanaian (1st Prize), Master Benjamin Degbey, a Ghanaian (2nd Prize), and Miss Chioma Obidigbo, a Nigerian (3rd Prize). The three candidates were selected from a total of 2,276,112 candidates who sat the examination in The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. The Augustus Bandele Oyediran Award for the Best Candidate in West Africa, 2022 also went to Master Alex Opoku Manu.”
Speaking, the President of The Gambia, Adama Barrow, commended the organisation for its exemplary service to citizens of the member countries, noting that among the regional bodies established during the colonial period, the council was the only body that had weathered the storm of extinction.
He urged WAEC to continue to be relevant to the needs and aspirations of its stakeholders in all the member countries in a technologically fast-changing world.
Barrow also lauded WAEC on its efforts in the fight against examination malpractice and called on all stakeholders to join hands to address the menace.
The Minister of Basic and Secondary Education, Claudiana Cole, in her speech, reiterated the government’s commitment to meeting the funding needs of WAEC in The Gambia.
At the end of the week-long meeting, the Chairman of the council, Prof. Ato Essuman, expressed profound gratitude to the governments of the five-member countries for the confidence reposed in WAEC and for providing the enabling environment in which the council had executed its mandate creditably for 71 years.
