2021 WASSCE: Katsina Girls Outperformed Boys

The Commissioner for Education in Katsina, Badamasi Lawal, has revealed that in the 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations, female students outperformed male students (WASSCE).

Mr Lawal announced this on Thursday during the official closing ceremony of the Girl Education Project (GEP-III) in Katsina. He explained that this resulted from the state’s dedication to enhancing women’s rights through educational initiatives.

“Five credits, including Mathematics and English Language, out of the total number mentioned above, 4,247 among the girls scored credit, that is 56 per cent, as against the males who scored only 48 per cent,” Mr Lawal disclosed.

The female students scored 58.7 per cent in English over the male student’s 54 per cent.

The commissioner also noted that the girls performed better than the boys in mathematics as well “because 5,678 of them scored credits, while only 4,726 of the boys scored credits” and that “because the number of the girls that sat for the examination was lower than that of the boys, the boys scored 58 per cent while the girls scored 53 per cent, which is also higher.

He claims the project’s overarching purpose is to equip teachers and expand educational opportunities for girls properly.

All of the accomplishments mentioned above in Katsina, he said, were made possible because of funding from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

“No doubt the intervention has improved the girl child education in Katsina State. I want to showcase the evidence of this improvement by making a presentation of the 2021 WASSCE results,” the commissioner stated. “It will show you that the presence of UNICEF in the state has done very well in improving girl child education.”.

Since Katsina is one of the states with the highest rates of female illiteracy, the United Nations agency adopted Girls’ Education Project 3 (GEP3) to increase the number of young women of school-age who attend school.

• UNICEF’s GEP3, funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), has been implemented in the states of Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Bauchi, Kano, and Niger and has already had a substantial impact, with more than 300,000 girls of school-age enrolled in schools in Katsina alone.